A Pale Blue Light
by Arwen Lune
Summary: COMPLETED! Kick the humans off the planet? Maybe. KEEPING the humans off the planet? It wasn't ever going to be that easy. Neytiri's point of view of the aftermath of the battle, and the makings of peace.
1. Chapter 1

_**A Pale Blue Light**_

_The movie made this part look really easy. Got to love those jump cuts. An attempt to fill in the gap._

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She desperately searched his face, but Jake didn't move, his body completely slack. It reminded her of the time the enormous tree-killing machine had approached and he wouldn't wake. It wasn't death, but it definitely also wasn't sleep. She'd meant to ask him about it, but events had put it out of her mind.

"Ma Jake!"

No reaction. She looked around wildly, at a loss of what to do. He wasn't wounded in a way she could help with. If he needed healing, she had no idea what sort.

There was a crash from the square metal box in the clearing, and she looked over to it, only now noticing the loud noise and the red flashing lights inside. One of the windows had been smashed in. Didn't the Sky People keep their dwellings closed off to the air of Pandora because it was dangerous to them? She heard another, softer crash and realised that someone was in there, perhaps hurt - and perhaps someone who understood what was wrong with Jake. She released his slack body and jumped up to head toward the metal dwelling.

Yes, there inside was a man, crumpled to the ground. Had he gotten hurt when the window was smashed? His face was familiar. She ducked through the too-small opening and kneeled down, sliding her hand underneath his torso and lifting him to her. His eyes slammed open, filled with terror, and she felt her own eyes widen. Jake. Jake's eyes. Not the same colour, but the same warm strength, the same gravity. She couldn't define how she knew but she knew with absolute certainty that this was the same man, the man she loved. The man that had fought a Toruk and submitted it to his will. Was this who he was when he was not dreamwalking with her?

"Jake, Jake, Jake!" she keened when his eyes drifted shut again, heart clenching with the fear that she would lose him just like she had lost him outside not minutes before.

He gasped, and she remembered the air, the air that was poisonous to him in this body. The Sky People wore masks if they were outside their closed-off dwellings. Looking around wildly, she saw one and pressed it over his face.

_Please don't die. We've lost too many already. We need you. I need you,_ she thought fervently, looking into his face. The mask did not seem to help. He was still gasping. Wasn't it supposed to let him breathe?

His body jerked, and one of his arms flailed in the direction of the mask. Touched something there and there was a hissing sound, and suddenly he was there, alive in her arms, taking huge gulps of air. The terror drained from his eyes, and he looked at her, recognition in his unfamiliar face now. Jake. Yes. Her Jake.

His hand came up, small and pale with strangely short fingers, and touched the side of her face. She marvelled at how familiar it felt.

"I see you," he said softly, and she heard in the English words all the echoes of meaning the Na'vi gave to those words.

"I see you," she smiled at him, smiled at Jake who did not have the face of her Jake and yet did. Smiled at one of the Sky People who was also one of the Omaticaya. He leant in to hold her and it was familiar and yet not and it was almost too much to wrap her mind around that she was embracing the same man in a different body.

When they let go of each other the urgency of earlier returned to her mind. Were the Sky People defeated? How many of her people had been hurt or worse? They could not dally here.

"We must go. I do not know where the others are. More enemies may come," she said, pushing to her feet, taking care not to bump against the ceiling. She half pulled him up with her as she rose, expecting him to climb to his feet, but he awkwardly slid back down to the floor, not looking at her.

"Ma Jake?" Was he hurt after all?

"Neytiri-" he fell silent, took a few deep breaths, then seemed to find his resolve. "I can't walk."

"You can't.. walk?" she repeated, taken aback.

"I was wounded – before, when I was with the Jarhead Clan – and now my legs don't work. I need my wheelchair-" he indicated a nearby seat suspended between two wheels— "to move around. And that doesn't work so well out there."

She knelt back down, trying to understand. Reached out an uncertain hand to his legs, clad in the garment all Sky People seemed to wear. Looked at him for permission, and when he nodded, very gently touched his leg. It was thin, with underdeveloped muscles, out of proportion with the torso of his body, this body, which was broad and well muscled. If his legs were wounded she thought she might have expected her touch to hurt, but he did not react.

"Does it not hurt?"

"It doesn't anything. There is no feeling in them."

"Oh."

She sat back down, the urgency of a moment ago forgotten. She'd never been very interested in how the Sky People had made the dreamwalkers. Now it was suddenly important.

"But you... when you were—" she gave up and gestured to the outside, hoping he'd understand.

"In the avatar body?"

"Yes. When you were dreamwalker... you could walk."

"Yes. It's... it's really strange. Your normal body, your human body, goes into a machine – like this one," he tapped the machine they were sitting next to. "And it's like a tunnel opens and you... you go into the other body. And all of a sudden you're 3 metres tall and blue and your legs work. It took some getting used to walking again."

She remembered now, when they'd first met, how graceless he'd been, clumsy almost. Unsteady on his legs especially on narrow branches and pathways. Easily out of breath when running. She'd put it down to him being a _skxawng_, an ungainly idiot who did not belong on Pandora. Now she realised that part of his awkwardness had been that he was still getting used to his body, to his legs. She'd said some rather unkind things that she regretted now.

"When... how... do you go back to this body?"

"Two ways. When the link is severed from this end-" he gestured at the machine. "For instance when this body is in danger, like it was just now because the window was broken – the link ends and I got dragged out of... out of the other body and back into this one. Or if someone disconnects it by pushing the button – you saw that happen, before. I don't feel that coming, I just keel over and wake up in the machine. And then I yell at the person who pulled me out."

Neytiri smiled slightly. Strange as it all was, the idea that he had been there with her the one moment and gone the next, woken up miles away, ready to chew out whoever had forced him to abandon his body – in a way it was amusing.

"I also go back into here when I fall asleep in the other body."

"That's a strange thought – that you fell asleep in the hammock next to me and then woke up somewhere else and continued with your day..." she didn't like it very much. There was this whole other life she knew nothing about, while he'd been with her pretty much her every waking moment.

"Well, not much of a day. Usually I just about managed a journal entry and some food before crashing into bed."

"And then you woke up and went back into the machine and into your dreamwalker body for another day of abuse?"

He grinned that familiar grin, and the back of her neck tingled.

"Well, I couldn't prove you right and just back out."

"I was angry, at first. It's a..." she gestured in the air, unable to find the right word. Finally she said something in Na'vi that he didn't recognise. "An insult? Not the right word – but that the Sky People made bodies in a lab and then channel themselves into it and walk around like they are Na'vi – as if all that is required is to be tall and blue - that angered me."

"And you tried to get me to turn myself into a splat on the forest floor, or to prove that I had the right to the body?"

She grimaced, but didn't deny.

He chuckled, and she relaxed a little, relieved that he didn't seem resentful of her early treatment of him.

"We should get moving – we are both needed," she said finally. "Do you need to go back into the machine?"

"I can't go back in," he said after a moment's consideration. "I can't wear the exopack inside, and I can't go without that. Even if I could make the link, it would mean leaving this body here without help or protection. Whatever I do, I think it'll have to be in this body."

She nodded, trying to figure out how that would work. His wheeled seat was useless out in the forest, and his avatar body was equally incapable of moving of its own volition. This could get difficult.

"I will need to find others, with Pa'li to carry you... the both of you."

He nodded, not looking particularly thrilled about this prospect, but accepting. She admired his fortitude while he was disadvantaged by this weaker body. She was sure that most Na'vi warriors would have behaved a lot poorer in his situation. It was one of the things that had finally made her see the value in him – he had honour, but not pride.

"You should bring... the other— Toruk Makto— inside here, so I can defend it. Him."

"I will do that," she said, and then leant in until they were nearly nose to nose. Wished the mask wasn't in the way, so she could kiss him. "But Toruk Makto is here. Not out there. You are him."

He seemed to consider it a brief moment, then shrugged. "I hope the others agree with you."

He leaned forward to pull his wheeled seat toward him, manoeuvred so that it was backed against the wall and he had his back to it, and then heaved himself onto the seat. It clearly wasn't easy, but she stopped herself from reaching out to help him. It looked like he could handle it, and she didn't want to insult him by implying he could not.

He must have noticed, because he said "Thank you," and flashed her a slight smile. "I will ask for help when it is needed."

She nodded.

"I'm going to hole up in that corner," he indicated it with a head motion, "gives me best view of the entrance. There should be a backup gun somewhere here..."

She moved out of his way so he could wheel to a different part of the room, where he found a small black metal thing that seemed to be a weapon. He opened something about it, checked it, closed it again. Seemed satisfied with what he saw. Grabbed a pack of what she thought might be food.

"The avatar body would be best over there," he pointed to the space behind the link machine. "It won't be visible from the door that way."

She nodded, noticing how comfortable and experienced he was deciding on this sort of defence situations. She'd never seen him behave like a warrior of the Sky People – he'd always been on her territory, deferring to her superior abilities as a Na'vi warrior.

It wasn't easy to get his Na'vi body inside the building, but she managed it, and put it down where he'd indicated.

Crouched down as she was in the small space, she reached out her hand to him, uncertain what she wanted to say, but needing to feel the comfort of his touch. Needing to reassure herself he was there, that he was Jake.

His smile warmed her from the inside out, and he reached out to take her hand a brief moment, caress her much larger hand with his pale thumb.

"I will return soon," she said, as much to reassure herself as him. "With others, and Pa'li to carry you, and with news."

"Good."

She extricated herself from the building and ran off, long effortless strides in the direction she thought she might find others. She was far from easy about leaving Jake behind, but keeping him company was useless if there was no help to move him. She would just have to hurry – and trust that he could handle himself even now.

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TBC

_skxawng -Moron  
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_Feedback always makes me happy._


	2. Chapter 2

_**A Pale Blue Light**_

_Chapter 2_

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Neytiri ran through the forest, trying not to think too hard about the bodies she passed. Mostly Sky People here. Some of the ones that walked in the machines, but many in their basic shape. Clothes and masks, ill equipped to handle Pandora. They were – had been – enemies, but she was acutely aware that many of them might not have chosen this path, might have looked on Pandora with different eyes had they had the chance to see.

Perhaps Jake, had he not gotten wounded, had he stayed with the Jarhead clan, would have been one of them.

The Tree of Souls was not far off, and she encountered the outer perimeter of guards before long, perched high in the trees, bows at the ready. She answered their calls with a sharp hunting whistle of her own, not slowing her pace. She wasn't going to get drawn into conversations now – Jake needed to be alone as short a time as possible.

In the clearing of the Tree she found others as she'd thought. An assembled group of warriors from the different clans, talking, greeting friends and family, asking about others. There were wounded too; Mo'at and Siyje, the Tsahik from the neighbouring clan, were dressing wounds and administering healing plans and roots.

"Neytiri!" someone called as she pelted into the clearing, and many heads shot up, voices rose in relief. She acknowledged them with a look, but did not pause, and went straight to her mother.

Mo'at held her a brief moment, touched their foreheads together, wordlessly expressing her relief that her daughter yet lived.

"The Sky People have been defeated," she said. "We have a large group of their warriors.. gathered in a clearing nearby. A lot of our warriors... those that survived... are guarding them."

Neytiri hugged her mother, knowing that the losses were great. She had known they would be, but that had been the abstract knowledge that not all of them would survive. Seeing it from the other side..

"We know not what to do with them now. Tsu'tey has not returned, and neither has Jakesully—" Mo'at paused, not wishing to declare her daughter's mate dead until she was certain.

"Jakesully is alive, mother," Neytiri said quickly. "He is not far from here, but he needs help. I will take a few people and Pa'li to bring him here – he will know what to do now with the Sky People."

"Go, then. We can talk when you and he return."

She jumped down off the base of the Tree and gestured to three of the riders that were looking outward, guarding the temporary home.

"Na'el, Tsuyo, Mo'ruo – please come. I need your help. Do we have spare Pa'li?"

Na'el guided her mount forward and returned a few seconds later with another pa'li following her. Neytiri mounted quickly and cantered off, the other three following her.

She had not been gone long, but that did not stop her from worrying – it was likely that some of the Sky People warriors were still out in the forest, and many of Pandora's predators had gathered in the area also.

"Is Toruk Makto wounded?" Tsuyo asked, steering his mount next to hers. He was the young hunter who had found his Ikran on the same day as Jake. "We saw that he was on the largest airship as it crashed."

"He is not.. not _hurt_," she frowned, at a loss as to how to explain Jake's current situation. "But he needs our help to move. He is... in a Sky People body. We will need to help him, and his Na'vi body."

"I do not understand. He is in another body? Could he not simply come with you?"

She shook her head, frustrated, and cut the conversation short as they were coming up to the metal dwelling where she'd left him. She dismounted and left the others to wonder over the body of the slain Palulukan, and the dead human in the machine.

"Jake?" she called as she approached the door opening.

"Neytiri? Come in – I am fine," came his answer. He was putting away the weapon as she entered the building. "The others?"

"We did it," she whispered, not quite believing it herself yet. "The Sky People are being held in the forest, guarded by our people."

His widened eyes said that he had expected this outcome no more than she had.

"Mo'at is looking to you for counsel on what to do from here. We've come to take you to the Tree of Souls."

He nodded, then stilled.

"Please start with getting him – me – big blue me – outside," he indicated the still Na'vi body. "I need to contact my friend at the base, so I can figure how to move from here."

She nodded, and began to manoeuvre his avatar body toward the door opening while he wheeled to a monitor and tapped some keys.

"Toruk Makto!" Mo'ruo exclaimed on seeing what she was doing. "He has... he fell?"

"Toruk Makto is in his Sky People shape," she said to the older warrior. It wasn't an easy thing to understand - the body looked very dead. "Please take his Na'vi body in front of you on your pa'li, and I will ride with-" she turned back to the dwelling, from where voices now sounded. She stuck her head through the door, not bothering to hide her curiosity.

"...what I hear, they're all rounded up in the forest somewhere. So we have most of them?"

"Quaritch left only the towers manned, and that's mostly show, because he took pretty much all the ammo," a shape on the screen said. "Selfridge is all over the place – last he heard the Dragon went down. And the best news is that I'm pretty sure you've got the shuttle crew there with you, the mechanics, most of the miners, pretty much all essential personnel. He can't do much but sit here and eat meal bars and wait for you to waltz through the gate."

"Thank you, Max," Jake said. "I won't be long in doing that. My human body ain't exactly practical around here, so as soon as it's safe I'll come in to use the lab."

"You'll find most of the medical and science crew on your side. We didn't want anything to do with what's been going on. So drop in on the lab as soon as it's safe – we'll do what we can for whoever needs it, OK?"

"That's great, Max. We took a battering. See you soon."

You take care, Jake. And don't underestimate Selfridge!"

"Talk to you soon, either way," the man grinned. "Bye Max!"

He turned to her with a grin, and she couldn't help but grin in return, the relief of it all finally catching up with her.

"Ready to go?"

"Let's roll," he said with a wry grin, wheeling himself toward the door, and then allowing himself to be lifted out of his chair and carried in her arms. She could tell he was far from comfortable with this, but he held himself with no complaints. She ignored the stunned faces of the others and brought him to her pa'li.

"Oh I don't like the idea of this," he muttered. "I wasn't any good with these things when I did have legs."

"I will ride behind you," she said softly, lifting him up onto the creature's back. He grabbed the fabric of his trousers and moved his leg over the withers to sit astride it, and then sat holding on tightly until she'd connected with the animal and mounted behind him. Her arm around him seemed to help a little, but he was still rigid with tension. She couldn't blame him. If he had to do more riding, perhaps they could rig up some sort of harness to give him more stability.

Na'el had placed the lifeless Na'vi body in front of herself on her mount, and on Jake's request Mo'ruo brought the wheeled chair. The small group started moving at a walk.

"Jakesully," Tsuyo said, coming up next to them. "It is a relief to see you yet live. We feared the worst for you."

"Thank you, Tsuyo – it is good to see you also. I am not looking forward to finding out who of us did not return. We took a heavy beating."

"If not for your plans, it would have been worse," the Na'vi warrior reassured.

Neytiri thanked him in the silence of her thoughts. Not all of the people would accept Jake so easily in his current form, but that some did – and thought no less of him – would help.

They rode in silence for a while, each retreated in their own thoughts.

"Did your friend tell you something useful?" she asked finally. Jake's head jerked, as if she'd startled him from his thoughts.

"Oh yes. I have a plan, but it's a big risk, and we will all need some time to recover and regroup."

"We have sent out Pa'li and Ikran riders to search for those of us who scattered and may be wounded," she said. "All Na'vi will gather at the Tree of Souls."

"Do you know how many of the humans were captured? Many must have died..."

"I do not know. We have no wish to kill them, but we cannot simply let them go back to their base either."

"I know. I hope I can negotiate their freedom in return for the departure of all the humans from this planet."

"You could really make them leave?"

"Well, I could _try_..." he trailed off, and she waited, trying to resist the urge to ask for what she was certain he would tell when he knew.

"A lot depends on how highly Selfridge values the lives of the people we have captured," he finally said. "If he doesn't, then we don't have much of a way to pressure him. He's holed up in the base, he's got lots of stores. He can't _do_ anything, so he'd have to make a move eventually, but it wouldn't be anytime soon."

"Could he leave? Go back to his own world?"

"I'm not sure. Max didn't think he has the right people to get to the Venture Star and run it – Quaritch took a lot of the technical people with him in the big airships, so they will be with us – or dead..."

"So we could negotiate that he gets back his people, so that he can take them all back to their world?"

"That's what I'm going to try for," he nodded, more resolve in his voice now. "We'll need to talk about who stays behind though – the people who fought on our side can't go back."

"I am sure nobody will insist that our friends leave if they prefer to—"

"Trudy." Jake interrupted her. "Trudy, the pilot who flew the Samson. She went silent on the radio. Do we know what happened?"

"Her aircraft– Quaritch– she—" Neytiri stumbled on the words. "She fell. I am sorry. She was very brave."

"I was afraid of that," he said softly. "If we know where she crashed, I would like for someone to... to see if there are remains to bury."

"We know the area where she- where it happened, an Ikran rider could be sent out today, if you wish."

"We will need all the riders we have, over the next few days."

He was silent, and she could sense that he was struggling – on one hand wanting to recover the remains of his friend, on the other hand not wanting to use scarce riders for non urgent tasks.

_If it is to be done, it should be soon_, she decided. If it was important to him, then his friend should not be left for the predators. _I will send somebody out when we get to the Tree_.

"I think I might be able to get him to leave..." Jake muttered. It took her a moment to switch back to the earlier conversation. "But I don't think they will stay away. For one thing, there is a spaceship on its way to Pandora already. Humans will keep coming, first just because they're already en route, and then.. there is too much money in this for the RDA just to leave Pandora alone."

"They want the... unob.. un-ob-ta-nium?" she struggled with the unfamiliar word.

"Yeah. If we make them leave completely, I think they will just return, with more weapons and more destruction. There's so much money invested in this project, they won't give that up just because we managed to beat them once."

"Then what...?" she heard her own forlorn tone. She'd had so much hope when she heard they had won, and now he was saying that the Sky People would just keep coming and coming?

"I don't know enough about the mining process for this, but some of the captives will – I think we will have to think about allowing a small human colony on Pandora that mines for the mineral in a way we find acceptable. No big machines or explosives. There must be methods that are more friendly toward nature."

"You would allow them to continue mining?"

"No. Yes. Not _continue_. Not as they are now. I'm talking about maybe fifty people at the colony, in total, and ten or fifteen of them would be scientists doing what they've been doing. A few support people to keep things running. And mining like the Na'vi would if we wanted the mineral – with hands, and hand tools, and care for the trees."

"Do you think they would agree to that?"

"I don't know. Now is the time to think and talk about it though – now is the moment we can make demands. If we send them away and they come back later, we're back at the start."

She nodded, understanding that with foresight and negotiation it might be possible to establish a situation that could work for both sides.

"Would they mine enough of the mineral, do you think?'

"To make the RDA happy? I hope so. It'd be less than what they'd get if they went about it their way, but more than they'd get otherwise... and no longer needing the machinery and the defences and the huge base would reduce the cost. They can slap a label on it... call it 'ethically sourced unobtanium' or something like that."

She wasn't sure what all of that meant, but his tone said that this wasn't an empty idea he was playing with – he had hope that things might work out this way, and that was enough to give her hope, too.

"It will be hard to convince the clans of this, though, won't it?" he said. "Most of the people must be pretty stoked about the idea of kicking off the humans and never seeing them again."

"You convinced me," she said, shrugging.

"I did?" she heard the smile in his voice.

"Just now. Much as I would love for us to have Pandora to ourselves, unless we could erase any memory of this planet in the minds of all the Sky People, we would not have peace. As you said, setting conditions in which they can still get the mineral, under our supervision... seems the best outcome we can hope for."

He nodded along with her reasoning.

"We should speak with Mo'at and the other clan leaders as soon as possible. If they agree, we can open negotiations with Selfridge."

They rode on in silence, each of them noticing the scattered bodies in the clearing they passed through. Neytiri felt a tear run down her cheek when she recognised one of the Na'vi fallen. They'd lost so many – people, Pa'li, Ikran – so many that would be sorely missed. She could only hope that with the help of Jake, her people could reach a lasting peace with the Sky People, or there would be many more slain.

Calls went up as they came closer to the Tree of Souls. First the shrill whistles of the scouts, then the voices of those guarding the Tree – challenge, then recognition. Then more voices, as those gathered in the clearing saw the riders, and recognised the slack body borne in front of Na'el. Someone let out a cry of grief.

"Well _this_ is going to be awkward," Jake muttered under his breath.

_TBC_


	3. Chapter 3

_**A Pale Blue Light**_

_Chapter 3_

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As a wail of grief sounded across the clearing, Neytiri wondered how to introduce Jake in his Sky People form before the gathered clan members focused on his Na'vi body, but Mo'at caught her eyes, already striding toward them.

"Jakesully," she said warmly, reaching out a hand to the man. "Eywa be blessed that you are still with us."

"Mo'at," he made a half-bow in acknowledgement. "It is good to see you, and the Tree, still standing. For a while there I feared-"

"We all did, but the Great Mother heard our despair," she answered. Neytiri looked around, gauging how the other people present were taking the concept of Toruk Makto in a different body. A few of them were still looking at the body Na'el and Tsuyo were lifting down from the pa'li so it could be lain at the base of the tree, but most of them watched Mo'at and Jake, expressions ranging from disbelieving to curious.

She dismounted, keeping a careful hand at his back to steady him, and gestured for Mor'uo to put the wheeled chair. it wasn't much use on the bumpy forest floor, but she guessed he would prefer it to having to be carried everywhere.

She knew that her mother, with her experienced healer eyes, had already seen that his legs were not working. Perhaps if Mo'at took it all in stride, the people would follow her example.

"Ready?"

He didn't look all that comfortable, but he nodded, and she lifted him off the horse and set him into the chair. He instantly grabbed the wheels and propelled himself a little further away from the pa'li. Ah yes, she'd forgotten just how very tall it had to be from his viewpoint, and how close its legs.

Mo'at had never stopped her update of the situation, and it made her smile to see her mother and her mate, two figures that could not be more different, side by side as they brought each other up to speed about the current situation.

"Close to a hundred? That's a lot of people. Are many of them wounded?"

"About half of them, most of them from _nantang _bites. Very few of the people that were in the flying machines have survived," Mo'at said gravely. Though they had had to defend themselves, the Tsahik could not be happy about any lives that had been lost.

"I have an idea about how to move from here, and what we could negotiate with Parker Selfridge - he is their leader."

"I thought the man with the nantang scars was their leader," Mo'at said.

"He was the military leader - Selfridge is the person who could decide about the presence of the company on this planet, as much as any one person can. I have some ideas about how to proceed, but we need to talk with all the clan leaders first, to make sure everybody agrees with my plan. And we must do this as soon as possible, for the captives cannot remain where they are for long, without food or medical care."

"I agree - but the day is already ending. I have asked that they be brought what food we can spare, and they are next to a spring. They are being guarded closely, both to contain them and to protect them..." her mother said. Neytiri turned away for a moment and searched for Ikran riders. A few were off to the side, guiding an injured warrior down toward the base of the tree. Their Ikran were the coastal type, large and calm. Just who she needed. When they had settled the warrior so that others could care for her, she approached.

"_Oel ngati kameie_," she greeted them. _I see you._ "I ask a favour. One of the flying machines turned against the rest, to help us – the pilot was a friend of Toruk Makto, Tru'dee. She crashed just south of Iknimaya mountain. It would be of great comfort to Toruk Makto if she was not left for the predators."

The warrior, who was of the Sea Clan, nodded respectfully; the name Toruk Makto carried much weight, even if he did not fully understand why the leader seemed unconscious while Mo'at spoke to one of the Sky People.

"I watched the small flying machine turn against the large one. I did not think the Sky People would fight one another. Tru'dee was brave to do so. I will search for her if Toruk Makto wishes her found."

"Thank you."

Just then more warriors approached the clearing, three of them dragging wounded others on stretchers. Along with them walked a human, arms scratched up, but mostly unharmed. It took a moment to recognise him, see the Na'vi face in the human face.

"_Oel ngati kameie_," she greeted him. "...Norm?"

His relieved expression proved her right.

"_Oel ngati kameie_, Neytiri," he said, his speech flawless if a little stilted. "I am glad to see you well. What of Jake?"

She turned and pointed to where Jake was talking to Mo'at and two others, clan leaders from the looks of it. Norm's expression of relief on seeing his friend did much to endear him to her.

"When he went silent on the radio link..." he trailed off.

"You should go join him – he has a plan, and will be glad to see you," she suggested. Norm nodded, looking a little less worried now. She kept forgetting how tall she was compared to the humans, and how strange it must be for them to walk among the Na'vi. Now that many of those present had seen her speak to him, he could hopefully count on a warmer reception by the people.

Already knowing the plan, she decided she could be of more use taking stock of the situation, and walked around the clearing for a while, talking to people, getting a feel for the losses among the different clans.

They were devastating – many of the Ikran riders had fallen, but they had gotten off lightly compared to the pa'li riders, who had ridden in formation and faced the deadly projectiles the humans used. Grim as it was, those formations had one advantage; most of the riders were accounted for. Hale, wounded or dead, they had moved in groups and the survivors had brought in the wounded, and some had returned now to bring back their fallen comrades.

She talked to a few of the Ikran riders that had come in to rest their mounts, having swept part of the forest in search of wounded Ikran riders. A handful of warriors had lost their mounts but were unharmed themselves, and were making their way to the Tree on foot. A few others were wounded and waiting until pa'li riders could help them travel. And many.. many were simply unaccounted for. She asked for news of Tsu'tey, but he was among the latter. Someone had seen him fall, but he had not been found.

She felt sadness well up within her. She hadn't loved Tsu'tey, not in the way she had come to love Jake. But she cared for him deeply, and they had shared a future for a long time. The thought that he may not return was one she wasn't ready to face yet.

The search would go on through the night, and as soon as their mounts had rested, these women and men would be back out there. She thanked the weary riders for their efforts, and walked to the nearby clearing where the Sky People were being held.

Nearly a hundred were there, sitting on the ground with their masks on. Some were facing outward, angry faces, glaring at the guards that were visible, and at her. Their weapons had been taken, and they looked like they were very much aware of it. Most of them had claw marks from the Nantang that had suddenly appeared.

Others were more to the middle, talking softly in small groups, taking care of the more heavily wounded. She saw broken bones there, and burn wounds – they were using the small stream to cool wounds. These people wore different clothes. She imagined these were humans who had been riding in some of the air ships. Some of them were eating the ze'ilu fruits they had been given – holding their breath, sliding up the mask for a quick bite, slamming it down again to breathe.

She saw what Jake meant – holding them here had to end as soon as possible. They needed healing that only their own healers could offer.

Ikran screeched not far off, a neighbourly squabble by her judgement, but as one the humans startled, worried about the sound. They were afraid, she realised. To them Pandora had shown nothing but hostility; they had never had the chance to see its beauty. She remembered all too clearly how she had found Jake the first time she saw him, and how amazed he'd been when the night had restored itself once his fire was out.

"How many do you have on guard?" she asked Marek, who was in charge of the captives.

"Fourteen visible, and twenty in the trees. We've taken their weapons far away from here; we prefer our bows anyway, and it takes away the chance that they could try to revolt and take our weapons."

She nodded at that. Even if they managed to take a Na'vi bow, it would be much too large to use.

"It's been mostly calm, but they are afraid of the animals. Should they be told that we are protecting them, and not just guarding?"

She nodded. "A good idea – it might stop them from trying to escape during the night."

"I sent someone to gather leaves of Niyalin tree, and Ma'xeo resin – for their wounded. But I have not the words in their language to explain the use." He gestured and someone approached with a basket of the healing leaves. She accepted it and stepped forward a little.

"Sky people," she addressed them. As one they turned to look at her. It was a little unnerving, but she ploughed on. "You will be here for the night. We know many of you are wounded – we have gathered some healing plants to help you until you have access to human medicine again."

There was little reaction, so she continued, taking a leaf from the basket. "Niyalin leaves. They are chewed to pulp, and put on wounds. Will stop infection from Nantang claws," she gestured at a man close by who had a deep claw wound on his arm. "Also good on burn wounds."

She picked up one of the smaller leaves that had a layer of resin dripped on it.

"Ma'xeo resin – for those wounded heaviest. It is licked, and will dull pain and make sleepy."

"You're just trying to poison us," someone shouted.

Neytiri frowned. She had expected mistrust, but how to convince them to use the medicine instead of let their wounds get worse?

"We have brought you food and medicine, and you are being guarded against predators. Why would we make that effort, when we have plenty of wounded ourselves, if we intended to poison you?"

Someone in the middle of the group climbed to his feet; she recognised one of the people that were taking care of the heavily wounded.

"She makes sense," he addressed the others. "Besides, even if it is poison – I doubt they," he indicated the groaning, semi-conscious men, "would prefer to die slowly of their wounds instead. We will try it."

She nodded, and he came forward to accept the basket.

"One request – it is getting dark. May we have a fire?"

"No fire," she shook her head. "No need. You will see."

There was some grumbling at that, but the knowledge that they were being protected from predators seemed to bring some calm.

She remembered Jake's mention of wishing to know about mining techniques. While it was hard for him to move around, it would probably be helpful to bring those he wished to speak to, to him.

"Are there any here with knowledge of mining?"

She smiled at the general air of bafflement. Clearly nobody had expected that question. Then, slowly, a young man put his hand in the air.

"I do. I plan and oversee mining operation – Quaritch drafted us into his..." he glanced around and trailed off. She got the feeling he had been about to say something uncomplimentary.

"Please come with me."

He looked alarmed, and so did those around him. Safety was in numbers, they seemed to feel.

"We have wish to learn about mining."

"Come again?"

* * *

TBC

_nantang - Viper wolf_

_OK, so it's a crap break off point – I'm not so with the clear chapters for this story because there are no time breaks. It'll have to do. _

_Thanks for the reviews! I'm glad you guys like the detail and the level of realism I'm trying to work with. There were so many  
plot points left trailing that I could knit a Na'vi sized sweater out of them :-)_


	4. Chapter 4

A Pale Blue Light

Chapter 4

* * *

The man looked up at her.

"Follow me." She exchanged a glance with Marek, and he made a head motion to one of the guards.

When he hesitated to follow her into the darkness under the trees, she halted and looked back.

"It is not far."

Finally he nodded, and followed. Neytiri walked slowly through the forest, allowing for the human's faltering steps in the dusk. One of the guards would be following at an unobtrusive distance as a backup measure. Not that she expected trouble out of this man.

Once they were further under the trees, where night had already fallen, the moss under her feet started to glow gently as she stepped, and he exclaimed in amazement, words she didn't understand. She halted a moment so he would too, and waited in silence as the moss trails on the trees began to emit their light, bathing the path ahead in a pale blue glow.

"This is... I've never seen anything like it," he said, sounding awed.

"Have you never been in the forest before?"

"Not at night, we're strictly forbidden," he said. "I went a few times to take mining samples, but my escort was really worried about predators, I did not have time to look around me."

"What is your name?"

The man shook himself out of his wide-eyed wonder.

"Hansdovitch"

"I am Neytiri."

She continued on the path, the human following more easily now that he could see. She paused once every while to make a high pitched 'keh' chirp, to forewarn the guards of her approach. Once, a family of Nytulsk answered, the creatures Jake had called Blue Lemurs.

The man froze in his tracks.

"Nytulsk. They eat plants," she grinned. "Not _every_ creature on Pandora wishes to make you its dinner."

"Could have fooled me..." he muttered. Then, perhaps to distract himself; "Do you really want to know about mining?"

The glow of the Tree of Souls was visible now through the trees, and she led the man into the clearing. The assembled Na'vi there stared at him, a mixture of wariness and curiosity in their faces. They were not inclined to welcome Sky People easily, but had now seen enough that fought on their side that they did not instantly assume he was an enemy. Nonetheless, Hans Dovitch followed her closely enough that when she turned a little to acknowledge a friend, she smacked him with her tail.

"My apologies!" they both said at the exact same moment, and she suspected that the amused look they exchanged did more for his trust in her than anything so far.

Jake was sitting at the base of the tree, focus of a circle of clan leaders, as well as Mo'at, Siyje the Tsahik of the neighbouring clan, and Norm. His face was animated as he explained something. She smiled at how well he'd grown into this, had become a leader in more than just battle in such a short time.

While it was Toruk Makto who had captured the imagination of the clans, it was a small, wounded human man whom they were listening to now, and with no less respect.

He was speaking a mix of English and Na'vi – there simply weren't words for some of the Earth concepts in the Na'vi language. Norm was doing his best to explain and translate some of them for the clan leaders. Jake's ability to speak and understand Na'vi had grown impressively, but he was still more comfortable expressing complicated concepts in his own language. The others replied in Na'vi, and she smiled at the mixing and using words wherever they fit best.

"You see, allowing the scientific base to stay would help regulate... would keep the balance from tipping too far toward the importance of the mining. We could even insist that the colony is lead by a scientist, to stop someone like Quaritch from setting the tone ever again."

"We would prefer for the Sky People to leave and never return," O'hute, the leader of the Sea Clan said finally. Neytiri saw Hansdovitch look at her red warpaint and fierce headdress with awe. "But I understand what you say, that they will not remain gone. They know about us now, and will not simply give up."

"If they would agree to a small colony, with mining methods that are acceptable to us, and leave us alone apart from that – it would be acceptable to me," one of the other clan leaders said after a moment of consideration.

"I don't yet know what the options are with mining, apart from what they've been doing. I intend to-" Jake looked up and spotted her, gave her a look that lost none of its warmth through his mask, and then saw the man she'd brought along.

He was watching with wide eyed wonder, and she imagined that he had perhaps understood half of the conversation. She lead him toward the small circle.

"Jakesully, I have brought you... Hansdovitch," she introduced the man. "Who plans and oversees mining operations."

"Thank you," he said to her, with again that warm look. "Please join us, Hans Dovitch, and tell us about mining techniques."

The man looked up at her in surprise.  
"You really do want to know about mining?"

"We want to know about mining that does not involve explosions and enormous vehicles. Mining that does not damage nature," Mo'at said.

Jake rolled his chair back a little to make space in the circle, and gestured for the man to join them.

"There must be ways to mine for Unobtanium that are friendlier to the environment, even if they are slower. Please tell us about that," he invited.

"Well, um, okay..." Hans Dovitch settled down and frowned a moment. "Well, there are a couple of options. The best here on Pandora would probably be to use mining bots. They're about this big," he made a shape with his hands that was about the size of a ze'ilu fruit, "and.. well you make a good area scan to locate the richest, purest veins of the material you're after, then you set the bot in a good location and it starts tunnelling toward it. You can program it so that it'll go around specific things, like tree roots – and there is always a controller there to adjust its course. When it gets to the material, it'll take as much as it can hold, then follow the same path back, filling it back up as it goes."

"If such methods are available, why use explosives at all?" O'hute asked when Norm had translated.

Hand Dovitch looked at Norm for the translation.  
"I guess it comes down to economies of scale – you could use the bots, which is a slow process and yields small amounts of fairly pure material – or you could blow up half the mountain, transport the rubble to earth, and refine it there. At the scale they've been doing it, it's worth it financially."

"Okay," Jake said, "Now for the hard question. How much mineral could be mined in a year by say, 25 people with bots, and how does that compare to what has been mined this past year?"

"Whoa. That's... that would be hard to compare even if I did have figures...." he launched into an explanation, with Norm translating as fast as he could, trying to find words for concepts that didn't exist in the Na'vi language.

Neytiri left them to it. She knew what he intended, and supported his plan, but she had little to contribute to its execution right now; involving herself would have been more about curiosity. With her father gone and Tsu'tey not returned, it fell to her to organise the people for what needed to happen now.

Chief among them - if they were to return the captives to the human compound, they'd need to figure out a way to get them there.

Looking around, more Na'vi had gathered at the base of the Tree, gathered in small groups. Though it was well into the night, new warriors were still arriving, many with wounded others. Friends and clan members found one another, shared news of loved ones. Now and then cries of grief rose to the sky.

Neytiri took a deep breath, finding it hard to contain her own grief, still so fresh. Her father, felled long before his time. Hometree, the central point in her entire life, crashed to the ground. Her beloved ZeZe, fallen after flying so bravely. Tsu'tey, his fate uncertain.

She had felt like the world was ending, and had been so prepared to watch everyone she loved die in battle, to die herself. It still hadn't quite registered that they had been victorious. At least, victorious in the battle; if they would succeed in convincing the humans to leave, was another matter entirely.

If anyone could make that happen, it was Jake. And the best way to help it happen, was to focus and step into the shoes of her father.

She returned to where the humans were being held. Staying out of their sight, she found the group calmer, silent in the pale blue light of the surrounding forest. Some of them were still warily watching outward, but many were slumbering, either stretched out on the moss or leaning against one another's backs. All of the wounded were calm; the groans of pain had stilled, presumably with the help of the Ma'xeo resin.

Two Ikran screeched in the distance and a few heads jerked up, then lowered again.

Only five guards were clearly visible in the gloom of the night. She knew that more others were perched up high in the trees, invisible to the humans.

"They are calmer," Marek appeared next to her. "Most used the leaves. However I fear that one might not wake up again. He is very badly burned..."

"If he took the Ma'xeo, I suppose at least he goes calmly," she said after a long moment. She hated the idea that any would die while a captive, but realistically seen there was simply nothing more they could do for them – and it was highly doubtful that any of the Na'vi would have been met with equal care if the roles had been reversed.

"He would have died had we not taken them captive," she said plaintively, not quite convincing herself.

"Not only him – many of them. Many more than will now," Marek said after a long moment. "Eywa drew many Palulukan to the area. We've had to turn back two already."

Neytiri nodded. The Na'vi used blunted arrows to scare off predators that ventured too close to their settlements; it happened but rarely that they needed to resort to sharpened arrows.

"I rode one," she said softly, remembering.

"Rode what?"

"A Palulukan."

His stunned expression was clearly visible in the dark.

"It was... I was trying to stay ahead of a line of Sky People warriors, and then suddenly a herd of _Angtsik_ came my way.. I thought they would trample me, but they went past me and... they ploughed into the Sky People. Behind them were many nantang and a Palulukan. I thought she would kill me, but she..." she paused a moment, remembering how stunned she'd been. "I can't call it anything else. She offered to carry me."

"What was it like, riding her? Having _tsahaylu_ with her?"

"She was..." Neytiri twitched her tail, unable to find words for what it had been like to bond with the giant predator. "Clear, and bright, and... sharp. You know how pa'li feel like they see everything, must keep track of everything? The palulukan was... focussed." She frowned. "Perhaps it was that something was driving her."

"And she let you walk away, after?"

"She died... the leader of the Sky People.. the battle leader – he killed her. He was in one of their walking machines and she leapt onto his knife..." she felt tears welled up as she remembered the feeling of that proud creature, one that had never before deigned to tsahaylu with a Na'vi, fade and die.

They were both silent for a long time, listening to the forest. Neytiri sent silent thanks to the spirit of the palulukan that had carried her, given her the chance to share a bond, no matter how short. She was certain she would never forget it.

One of the humans coughed, and her thoughts turned back to practical matters. She estimated that perhaps half of them were up for the twenty-mile march it would take to get to their base, though it would be slow going. What of the others? It was possible to carry wounded on pallets pulled by pa'li, but there was a big gorge on the route that was not suitable for such constructions.

"It will not be easy to return them all to the base," she sighed. "They will need to walk all day and into the night, and then we haven't even figured out how to move the wounded yet."

"Why would we have to deliver them to their base?" Marek asked. "If their leader wants them back, he can arrange it – they have flying machines."

Neytiri let out a chuckle. "I had not considered that! You are right. It is not our responsibility to delivery his men back to him."

"If anything we've already done them a kindness by gathering them together and protecting them," Marek grinned.

"Indeed. That takes one problem off my back."

"What is the other?"

"I think Jakesully will want to go to the base as soon as possible, to negotiate with the leader. I am not sure how I could get him there."

Marek said nothing. She knew he'd seen Jake in his wheelchair, but it seemed quite an uncomfortable concept for most of the people that the brave warrior they had followed into battle was the same person as this human that could not walk. A lot of them appeared more comfortable with simply not acknowledging it.

"If I still had SeZe..." she would have been able to... perhaps carry Jake in a sling on her back as she flew the Ikran. She was quite certain that Jake wouldn't like the idea of being carried like a child, but if there was no other option, he would deal. The only alternative she could see was to strap him onto a pa'li and ride the twenty miles, and that seemed even less doable.

But she didn't have SeZe anymore. There was no time to find another Ikran, and in any case she would never dare riding with an extra passenger on a new mount.

Perhaps a large, calm Ikran... its rider could carry Jake. No, that left her without a way to get to the base at the same time, and there was no chance she'd let him go off on his own to speak to the leader.

Frustrated, she said goodbye to Marek and returned to the Tree. On one side of the clearing many voices rose in a slow song of honour and remembrance, the song of the fallen. Jake was still sitting under the Tree, together with Norm and Hansdovitch. They were watching and listening, and she thought Jake might be mouthing along with the song.

The clan leaders had gone to speak to others of their clan, slowly moving between their people.

She went to greet him, and he smiled up – a long way up, happy to see her. Sitting down to bring them to a more equal height, she laid her hand along his face, and he reached out to do the same.

"_Could you ask someone to bring Hans back to the others?_" he asked her in Na'vi. "_Then I can tell you what is happening._"

* * *

TBC

_Angtsik - Hammerhead Titanothere  
Tsahaylu - bond_

I'm having a hard time chopping this in chapters, since there are virtually no time-breaks in the events. You'll have to do with a slightly awkward chaptering!

Thanks for all the reviews – so much fun to write in an active fandom and get people reading along and commenting!


	5. Chapter 5

**A Pale Blue Light**

_Chapter 5_

_Playing in someone else's sandbox. Obviously._

_

* * *

  
_

"_Could you ask someone to bring Hans back to the others?"_ Jake asked her in Na'vi. "_Then I can tell you what is happening."_

Neytiri looked around and gestured for a nearby warrior to approach while Jake thanked Hansdovitch for his explanations.

"Please bring this man back to the Sky People clearing," she said to the warrior. "He has been helpful to us," she added, hoping this would make him regard the man with some kindness while he lead him through the forest.

Hansdovitch made a little half-bow to her when he got up, and she nodded at him, and then the warrior took him away.

"Thank you for bringing him to me – he has been very useful," Jake said. He looked tired, but also pleased. She settled down next to him, his hand in hers.

"What is happening now?"

"The clan leaders have agreed with our plan – they are now informing their people. It seems best to get as much support for the idea as possible, so we may stand as one."

"Did Hansdovitch tell you anything useful?"

"Oh yes. There are methods that the clan leaders agree are acceptable, and if we agree to having 40 miners in the colony, they would yield a little under a third of what the company is currently getting in refined Unobtanium."

"That is.. not much."

"We think it'll be enough," Norm said. "Though you could haggle and allow 5 more miners, if it'll help Selfridge accept."

Jake nodded. "Maybe in turn for having the colony be lead by Max."

"Will he accept such a loss?" Neytiri asked. "Will he not prefer to return with more guns and bombs instead?"

"I don't think he will. There's another factor at play – Selfridge's pride. He has bosses on earth, leaders that judge him for what he does here. If he comes back to say that he's been run off the planet by the natives, and needs help to take it back, It will be seen as his failure. He will lose face."

She nodded. Nobody liked to bring news that they had been defeated.

"If he returns with the news that he has discovered a new, better way to mine the mineral, a way that is cheaper and more eco-friendly, then his bosses will be angry because he brings in less money, but other people, important people on earth, will be very happy with him. If he plays it right, they will make him famous. And the company could not punish him or go back on his decisions here without looking bad."

"Very bad pi-ar," Norm agreed – whatever that meant.

Jake pushed his mask down a little to rub his forehead, perhaps struggling to find the right explanation.

"I can't completely explain to you, it's too complicated and I don't fully understand how all of it works myself, but I think it could work. "

She nodded. It seemed strange to her that it mattered so much to the company what people thought – but if both of them, with their knowledge how things on earth worked, thought it would, then she would believe them.

The three of them watched for a while as the clan leaders drifted from conversation to conversation, informing their people of the idea and gaining support. It was important that all of the People knew and supported the idea that there would still be a small colony of Sky People; if some refused to accept its presence and chose to attack, then the fragile balance would shatter.

"When do you wish to speak to the leader?"

"Come daylight, if possible," Jake said. She noticed that his eyes seemed slightly off, as if he had trouble focussing.

"That's not far off. You should sleep at least a little," she said, looking at him critically. She didn't really know what was a normal state for him in this body, but he was definitely looking... well, wilted. Very tired, with a face that seemed to have a grey tone to it. Considering how long he'd been up, and what he'd been through over the past few days, it wasn't surprising.

"Yeah. I have a killer headache. Maybe a hangover from breathing without mask.."

"You were without mask?" Norm's voice rose in pitch. "How long?"

"Long enough to be nearly dead," Neytiri supplied. She'd seen the glassy look in his eyes when she found him. He'd been dying.

"Oh man, why didn't you say before? Do you have any idea what those gasses do to your system? No wonder you have a headache. We need to get you into the medi-lab."

"Tomorrow," Jake said resolutely. "Which is really soon. We go to the base, god knows how, and I will talk to Selfridge, and then I will go into the medi-lab and let the squints scan me and poke me to their heart's content. Need a few hours shut-eye first."

She nodded and brought him to an area at the back of the tree. Found a blanket, helped him out of his chair and lay down. He closed his eyes immediately, a soft squeeze in her hand thanking her. She wanted to sit down next to him to keep watch, but Norm was still standing where they'd been talking, looking distressed.

"Is he in danger?"

"I don't know, he could be. Why didn't he say? I thought he seemed to have trouble concentrating, but... Man. We need to get him to the medi-lab."

"He felt he was needed, and could not be wounded right now. And he was right," she said, looking around. Without his sense of purpose, her people would be in a different sort of state right now.

"How are we going to get him to base?"

She thought for a moment. There was no way she was going to let him out of her sight now, and certainly not on an Ikran with somebody else. Somebody who might not be as careful of him.

"I can carry him on my back, and ride a pa'li," she decided. "It will not be comfortable, but we can use a sling, I will do my best to ride smooth – best option we have."

"How long is the ride?"

"In your time measuring?" she puzzled on it for a moment. "Perhaps an hour?"

Norm nodded. "Is there a way that I can go as well? With him not feeling well.."

"I will ask one of the other riders to carry you." Yes, it would be good for Norm to be there, to help her with the negotiations if Jake.. if Jake was unwell. "Six of the People, and you and him, for negotiations."

"We will need to get the avatars there as well," he mused. "Mine is wounded... It feels really crazy to be worried about my body.. a body I'm not in. I hope it can be healed."

She nodded – there was so much to arrange, but all of that was of secondary concern – the negotiations with the leader had to happen before anything else could start.

"We should sleep, too."

They sought a place to sleep – Norm close to the tree in the curve of a massive root, and Neytiri herself laid down next to Jake, her body curled protectively around his. She found strange comfort in knowing that he was here, really here – not waking up in a machine somewhere, but still with her even asleep.

His sleeve had ridden up a little, and she leant in closer to investigate the strange markings on his skin. There were a dark grey, almost black, and the swirls intrigued her. Were they some sort of tribal marking, perhaps of the Jarhead clan? Decoration, or a passage rite? She had seen similar sort of drawings on some of the human warriors, but not nearly on all, and some had completely different drawings. She'd have to ask him at some point.

_You had better wake up again, Toruk Makto_, she thought affectionately. _I want to see the leader's face when you tell him your plan. I want to see it work out. And I want you to be here to see the results_.

* * *

She woke to a touch on her face, and opened her eyes to look straight into his. How could it be that in this shape, none of him was blue except for his eyes? He was laying close to her, an arm over her, hand cupping the point of her shoulder. His mask did nothing to conceal the warmth in his eyes.

"Hey."

"Hey."

She smiled back; he looked much better after the few hours sleep they'd managed. His eyes looked clearer and his colour was more what she imagined it should be.

"Feeling better?"

"A bit, yes. What's the plan now?"

"We'll ride. You will sit in a sling on my back, the way we carry children sometimes."

"Awesome."

She blinked in confusion, because he sounded anything but enthusiastic – she thought that word was a positive one.

"Norm awake?"

She pushed herself to a sit. Norm was curled up into a ball with his back against the tree root. He seemed to be stirring.

"Just starting to wake."

Jake sat up, dug around in his pockets and produced two rectangular packets. Then with admirable accuracy he threw one at Norm. It bounced off the man's mask, causing him to jerk upright with a startled HUH! sound.

"Breakfast time, sunshine," Jake grinned, opening his packet and doing the complicated mask-off-bite-mask-on manoeuvres necessary to eat.

"Asshole," Norm muttered, but without much heat.

They set off as soon as possible, herself with Jake tied close against her back, his arms around her neck, Na'el with his wheel chair, Tsuyo, Mo'ruo riding with Norm, and two other warriors that were rested enough to undertake the journey. Jake held himself silent and stiff at first, uncomfortable with being carried and out of control. She leaned forward a little on the pa'li, letting her legs absorb the rhythm of its canter. After a few minutes Jake began to relax, and he laid his head against the side of her neck.

"Don't mind me, I'm just trying to have another nap," he said, and she relished the grin in his voice. It meant that he was still there, still hers, even though she knew he couldn't possibly be comfortable. Even though she could tell his headache was not gone.

They paused not long into the ride, because Norm asked if he could be in a sling as well – riding double at this speed was a problem, and Mo'ruo agreed that his bouncing was just agitating the pa'li. She saw the men exchange a look from their places on the back of the Na'vi, and shook her head in amusement. It was a good thing neither of them was hung up on pride.

They rode on, mounts in single file, ducking for low branches, jumping fallen trees. There was a trail, though they had to find their way around obstacles a few times.

Jake laid the palm of his hand against her breastbone, warm and solid. His lips were near her ear, and he was whispering something, so softly she couldn't quite hear the words, but it felt like she didn't need to. Her mind resonated with the feel of him, strangely like the bond they'd shared on the night that they mated – _tsahaylu_, the closest two people could be, in mind and body and spirit. It felt strange to feel that while he was in his human body, but she did not question it, took a deep breath and laid her hand over his. It was comforting to know that Eywa was still open to him even now, that her Light was shining on Jake no matter what he looked like.

* * *

TBC

_Wheee!_


	6. Chapter 6

A Pale Blue Light

_Chapter 6_

_

* * *

  
_

Neytiri reached down along her side, stilling the foot that was swinging against her thigh with every canter pace. The leg was thin, muscles wasted away, and the foot was thin and soft-skinned, nothing like the hard, well-worn feet of the Na'vi. No wonder that the humans who walked wore hard protective shells around their feet. It was a strange idea that she was touching him and he could not feel her do it.

She was impressed at how matter-of-fact he was about... about his injury. He did for himself as much as he could, and accepted help with what he could not. She was not sure how common his problem was among humans on earth; perhaps nobody there thought it was out of the ordinary? Perhaps a battle wound was seen as a mark of honour, proof of his bravery even though it left him weakened?

The Na'vi were not familiar with such wounded. Severe injuries were rare among the People; she knew of only one man who had lost part of his leg to a Palulukan, and he had died of old age some years ago. An injury such as Jake's would either have healed with the help of Eywa, or claimed the life of the wounded.

"Hu'jil – that's your name, right?" Jake said, startling her from her thoughts. Hu'jil, one of the warriors she had asked to accompany them, guided his pa'li next to hers. "Did you have something to say?"

Jake sounded calm, but she could feel his tension. Hu'jil had given him a few askance looks while she had helped him settle into the sling. She had vaguely regretted asking the man along, but there had not been many with rested pa'li to chose from.

"How do you know my name?"

"We have met before. I think it was when I stepped on your tail one night at the campfire."

"There were no sky people at any campfires. We do not _like_ sky people."

"And still, we've met before. I am Jake Sully."

For long moments the only sound was the thundering of pa'li hooves through the undergrowth. Neytiri looked straight ahead, staying out of the conversation – she was half impressed that Hu'jil was actually talking to Jake. Most of the clan, no matter how curious or disapproving they were, had avoided Jake, most likely because they knew he was under her and Mo'at's protection, and they did not wish to risk offending her or their Tsahik. Hu'jil was voicing ideas she was fairly sure many of the people held.

"I do not understand how small man that cannot walk is Toruk Makto," Hu'jil said after a long moment.

"You know about dreamwalkers, no?"

The man made a gesture that might have allowed that he did not.

"This body is my body like your body is yours," Jake started, searching. "And the humans made another body for me that could live here on Pandora. With a machine I – I leave this body and go into the dreamwalker body."

"Toruk Makto is great warrior. Very brave – brought clans together. Small man that cannot walk cannot be him."

She felt Jake sigh.

"When you get old, and your sight grows dim and your fingers tremble too much to shoot – will you still be Hu'jil?"

The man made an affronted snort.

"Of course."

"If someone remembers you as you are now, and meets you again then, will they claim that you cannot be the same person because your body is weaker?"

Neytiri smiled at the silence that followed.

* * *

"Thank God for tarmac," Jake muttered, rolling himself forward, toward the gate and the tower next to it. Neytiri and Norm followed. The others stayed with the pa'li on the edge of the forest. Beyond the gate the base seemed completely deserted.

"Halt!" a mechanical voice yelled from the base of the gate tower. A large gun that was mounted on the wall swivelled in their direction.

Jake let his chair roll out.

"Hi!" he called up, looking at a small round machine on the wall. His voice sounded cheerful. "Did they leave you any ammo for that thing or did they just say to point and threaten?"

"I got ammo!"

Despite being mechanical, the voice sounded like an anxious young man, Neytiri observed.

"Well, that's good," Jake called back. "I'd hate to think of you sitting there with nothing but your voice to scare all those predators away. I've tried, but they're not that easy to scare."

"What do you want?" Oh yes, the voice definitely sounded rattled.

"Talk to Selfridge," Jake said. "Got something to discuss with him."

"He doesn't want to talk to anybody!"

"He'll want to talk to me," he said with calm authority. "Call him to say that the Na'vi are here to negotiate about the return of his men."

All went silent, and Neytiri and Norm went to stand next to Jake.

"Do you think he'll talk?"

"I don't see how we could refuse," Jake said. "We'll see."

They waited for what felt like a long time.

Neytiri shaded her eyes and looked through the heavy bars of the gate. There in the distance a few humans were running, and shortly two vehicles started to move toward the gate. The one in the lead had two men in it; one of them in the clothes she had come to recognise as the Sky People's idea of camouflage. In the second vehicle were two men and a woman, all dressed in white coats.

As they approached, the big metal gate started to slide to the side, opening the way into the base. Jake didn't move, waiting where he was.

The vehicles stopped, and the men climbed out. The man in the camouflage clothes had a weapon ready, but the other gestured for him to wait with the vehicle. That had to be Selfridge, the leader of the humans on Pandora. He was younger than she'd expected. He also looked very tired, his face the same grey tone that Jake's had had before he slept. He walked to the line that marked the border of the base.

"Sully," he nodded at Jake.

"Selfridge."

"You're holding my men hostage?"

"Hostage? No. It's more that we've gathered them in one place to stop them from becoming Thanathor snack food."

The man ran a hand through his hair. Neytiri wondered if he had a plan, a goal from this conversation. Norm seemed quite shocked at his behaviour, so she had to assume he was not behaving like the men knew him.

"None returned," Selfridge said plaintively.

"The airships went down," Jake said. "Not many of their crew survived the crashes."

"How many are you holding?"

"Just shy of a hundred, last time I checked. Some more may have been found during the night. Riders have been out looking for wounded from both sides."

"A hundred..."

"We want to get them back here, some of them need medical care we don't have in the forest – but first we need to talk."

"Talk about?"

"The RDA's presence here on Pandora."

To Neytiri's eyes the man didn't seem that shocked about this. Taken aback, but not surprised. He looked at her and Norm, close but not quite hovering, and at the white-coated people that were standing not far off.

"Let's talk privately," he finally said. Jake nodded, and they moved off to the side, still on the dividing line between Base and Outside, but out of earshot. At least, what she assumed what was out of earshot for the humans. She could still hear most of what they were saying, and Jake knew it. Selfridge was facing away, a little harder to hear.

Norm called something to the white-coated people, and they came closer, until they were standing in the gate entrance as well, and began to question Norm. They obviously knew him, and she realised that one of the men was Max, the one Jake had talked to from the radiolink in the shack.

"_Oel ngati kameie_," he greeted her, clearly not very used to the words. She smiled.

"And I see you, friend of Jake," she said.

He didn't seem to know what to say further, and she did not either, so she went back to observing Jake and Selfridge. The man was standing close to Jake, uncomfortably so to her mind, and was looking down on him as he talked. She looked at Jake, prepared to step in should it be required, but he was calm, seemed unaffected by the attempt at intimidation.

"--_really_ want to go back to earth to tell them that you lost a base that's been here for over a hundred years?" Jake said. "What's that going to do for your career?"

"...apparently he was without mask for a while until Neytiri found him," she heard Norm say, and she drew her attention back to her companions. Suddenly they were all focussed on her.

"Do you have any idea how long?" Max asked her urgently.

She shook her head, not sure if she could give a time indication that meant anything to him. It had seemed like forever. Hearing the blaring of the machines in the shack – the realisation that the still body on the ground was his, watching his face for an eternity before she remembered he needed the mask, then another eternity of watching his face through the mask, begging Eywa to help, do something, _anything_. Then his arms coming up in what had seemed a spasm at first, and then, finally, the sound of his gasping.

"He.. woke up enough to turn on the mask, when I put it on his face," she finally said, trying to stop the moment from replaying in her mind.

"OK," Max said, sounding like he was trying to reassure himself. "He'll need to spend some quality time on the oxygenisation machine, but if there were going to be any serious effects, he'd already be having them now. How about his avatar? And yours, for that matter?" he asked Norm.

"I believe his is fine, he got thrown out because the shack's window was broken so the link terminated. I - mine - was shot—" his hand went up to his shoulder as if he could still feel it. "I did the best I could to stop the bleeding, and I think Mo'at used some sort of resin to... I'm not sure. She said it would help it survive."

"Ma'xeo resin," Neytiri supplied. "It can bring sleep like death. Almost no breath... slow, slow heartbeat. We use it for heavily wounded, so they can be moved. So that there is more time."

"You have a resin that can induce a coma?" The woman in the white coat exclaimed. "All this time we've been here and we're still discovering new things. I would love to have a sample to study, especially if we're going to get Norm's avatar in the medi-lab."

Neytiri shrugged, not quite understanding the excitement. She opened the small bag that was attached to her belt and pulled out a small folded leaf.

"Most warriors carry this in time of battle," she said, bending down to hand it over. "You will see its effects soon enough – some of the wounded humans have taken it. Some of them have very bad burn wounds."

"How many of the amino tanks are fully cycled and ready?" Max asked the woman. Then to her: "This is Doctor Francine Sequin, by the way. She's our chief medical person. I'm sorry, should have introduced. Francine, this is Neytiri."

The doctor made a slight bow, which she returned.

"And this is Doctor Rick Sjogren."

She greeted the other doctor also.

Francine started to tell Max something about the cycling of tanks, which Neytiri didn't really understand and wasn't particularly interested in. Jake and Selfridge were still talking, Jake's calm, warm tone a counterpoint to Selfridge's more agitated speech.

"I am offering you something to come home with..."

"A two-thirds reduction of yield – at best!" the man burst out.

"At a massive reduction in cost. You've introduced an eco friendly, ethically sound way of mining! Created a lasting peace and cooperation with the Na'vi people!" Jake argued. "I know you can spin this. If you play it right, the eco lobby will be lining up to give you awards, and the RDA will be so flooded with praise for finally gaining a conscience in the Pandora operations, they will have no choice but to swallow it and promote you."

Both men lowered their voices again, and she couldn't quite make out what Selfridge answered, but he seemed calmer.

"We will need to get the avatars here as soon as possible," Max was saying to Norm. "Plus any Na'vi wounded we could help with. The amino tanks are especially good for burn wounds, the results can be quite amazing."

Neytiri relived the memory of a pa'li bolting through the forest, screaming because its hide was on fire, and shuddered. Fire. They had used fire.

"What is an amino tank?"

"It's designed to imitate the circumstances in a womb - like a large bath that you're submerged in – connected to an umbilical cord. We have 3 for humans and 3 for Na'vi. The fluid has amazing healing properties."

She nodded. "Several of the humans have large burn wounds. I am not even sure if all of them made it through the night – I would prefer to move them here as soon as we can."

"How would that even work?" Norm asked. "Do you have any airships left? And anybody to fly them?"

"I think we have two Samsons, though I have no clue why they were left behind – maybe because Quaritch didn't have more pilots?" Rick Sjogren said. "I have a civilian license, so in a pinch I could probably fly one."

"I think I have a pilot in the infirmary," Francine said. "He's just getting over a bout of the flu."

"Okay, we'll see if he is capable and shuttle people over," Max decided. "No offense Rick, but flying here... You'd be going into the flux."

"Yeah, I get it," Rick grinned. "We'll have to get Selfridge to agree to it first though."

They looked over to the two men. Selfridge was standing a pace further away from Jake, calmer now. Neytiri watched her mate's face, wondering how he was feeling. He hadn't been too well this morning, and he'd been talking to Selfridge for more than half an hour now.

"How many people are here now?" Norm asked.

"I don't know, perhaps 30? Quaritch really pulled everybody he could into his fleet," Max said. "We've got a few guys in the guard towers, but I think even the cook was press-ganged. The rest of us are mostly the science crew and a few others he didn't trust to keep their weapons aimed at the other guys."

Selfridge suddenly walked away from Jake, and Neytiri frowned. She'd not heard any words or tone that might indicate he was ending the conversation. Jake just waited.

As she watched, the other man went to the side of the gate tower, where a few empty crates were stacked. He took one and returned to where Jake was, and sat down on it.

Face to face now, the men continued talking. Neytiri decided that had to be a good sign.

They talked for a long time, in serious, low voices that she couldn't hear well enough to hear the words. Finally Jake gestured for Max to join them. The scientist took along a crate to sit on, and all three men sat leaning forward, elbows braced on knees, faces animated. Neytiri recognised the look on Jake's face – he was no longer convincing, he was problem solving now. Arranging.

* * *

_To be continued_

Thanks for all the enthusiastic reactions! Hmpf MacSlow, I hope you like what I did with your suggestions :-)


	7. Chapter 7

A Pale Blue Light

_Chapter 7_

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* * *

  
_

It was past mid-day when the three men nodded at one another, and Jake turned his wheelchair to roll toward her. He looked tired, with a little of the grey colour in his face he'd had the night before, but he seemed pleased.

"I think we've settled it," he said in answer to her unasked question. "We'll need to hammer out some more details about what the colony here is going to be like, but for now we've agreed to the big lines, so we can get the wounded seen to."

"That is good to hear. Are you feeling well?"

"Not really," he admitted in a low voice. "But I can stand it a little longer. We will need warriors of the Omatecaya here, as many of those that speak English as are able to come. We're going to send a Samson airship over to start collecting the wounded, both of ours and of theirs."

"Should I send the riders," she gestured at the five warriors still standing at the edge of the forest, "to bring the news and request more of the People to come?"

"Send two – we'll need whoever we can get soon enough. Selfridge is going to call out all personnel that's still on the grounds and bring them into the mess hall. All the gates except this one will be closed; if the other three would guard this one, that would help. I think we'll need someone to go around checking that all of the tower weapons really are without ammo, and then locking them, so we don't get somebody trying to be the hero..."

"Should we not also check all the people here for weapons?"

"You're right, of course. Yes. The mess hall will not have any – if we check them before they go in there.. I really should—"

"Not before you've been in the medi-lab," Francine Sequin interrupted him. "If you weren't already sitting, you'd have keeled over by now."

"I need to—"

"No. Medi-lab. Now." The doctor folded her arms, and Neytiri stifled a giggle at Jake's resigned expression.

"Right. Medi-lab."

As Jake rolled to one of the vehicles, the others gathered around him, taking instructions about the various facets of the plan.

Neytiri stayed behind for a moment to inform the five warriors at the forest edge about what was going to happen. She sent two back to the Tree with news, hoping they would arrive ahead of the airship, and the other three accompanied her toward the gate. She would have to ensure that someone known to her people would fly with the airship, or things might yet head in the wrong direction.

Selfridge had let the gate be partly closed, so that no more than two people could pass through at a time, making it easier to guard. He had also called the guard out of the tower, a pale young man who looked exactly as nervous as his voice had sounded.

She watched the leader of the base talk to the man who was still waiting in his vehicle, and he and the gate-guard got in and slowly followed the vehicle Jake was now in. Selfridge looked... resigned, and she thought he also seemed a little relieved. As if he'd been completely without hope or purpose, and Jake had given him a direction.

Once she was happy with the gate guarding, she mounted her pa'li and turned it into the direction the vehicles had gone. It moved a little uncertainly at first, not convinced the strangely smooth ground was safe, but it quickly steadied and changed into a canter.

* * *

Rick Sjogren was standing by the now-empty cars, waiting for her. She dismounted and bade for the pa'li to stay near, and went over to him.

"Where is Jake?" She really didn't like the idea of leaving him alone right now. Selfridge may have decided to cooperate, he was still basically going into hostile territory. She had no doubt that Jake was generally perfectly capable of defending himself, working legs or no – but she was worried enough about his health right now that she didn't want to worry about him getting attacked as well.

"We have a side-bay into the building that's the avatar lab, you can see into the human lab from there," he walked away, indicating that she should follow.

"Can I not go in?"

"Well, our ceilings and so on aren't ideal for you, but main thing is the air... Hmm, there's a question. The air here is harmful to us, but would our air be harmful to you?"

"I do not know, I have never tried."

"How would we find out? I guess you could try an exopack..." he mused. "Let me talk that through with Max first. I don't think it would do you damage, if he concurs then you can try. If you're fine, then of course you can come in."

Neytiri smiled, remembering Doctor Grace Augustine and her fascination with everything that was new to her. Nick Sjogren had the same enthusiasm for figuring things out.

He opened a door, a Na'vi sized door, and blocked it from closing; a few paces further in there was another door, which he also blocked open. Behind it was a brightly lit room, with windows that looked into a large human-sized space. Inside were two platforms, each one underneath a closed round doorway in the walls. Through the window she could see that there were large tanks behind the doorways. A woman in a white coat was looking at a screen while different coloured lights blinked.

"Those are the amino tanks," Rick Sjogren said. "We're preparing them for the wounded."

She nodded, looking through the window at the people walking around there. On one side were big boxes like she'd seen in the shack, like the one Jake had been in. Link machines. On the other side were tables and machines and a few people doing.. things. She dismissed them – was Jake not supposed to be here?

"Where is Jake?"

"Behind the far door."

She blew out a sharp breath in frustration, tail twitching. Ceilings and walls and doors – so closed off from the sky. No wonder the humans thought killing trees was normal; then were so removed from them!

"I'll be right back, okay?" Rick said. He went through a heavy metal door, and there were some hissing sounds for a long moment, and then another clunk – then he was on the other side of the window without his mask on. She watched as he disappeared through the far door, and waited impatiently.

"Neytiri?"

It was Jake's voice, but she couldn't tell where it came from.

"There's a little box with a green and a red light next to the door. You can push the green light to talk to me."

She looked around and spotted the box. She had to stoop down to press the button.

"Jake?"

"_I am here, my love_," he said in Na'vi. She closed her eyes and let out a breath, feeling some of the tension unwind. "I am in a scanning machine, so I can't come out where you can see me."

"_I am – I want—I need to be near you_," she confessed, switching to Na'vi. She couldn't find words, at least not words she was willing to say out loud, but it felt very important that he was not out of her sight right now.

"I know, I feel the same," he said softly. "Rick is talking to Max about if you can come in here. I think they want to hook you up to some monitors so they can see what happens inside of you when you try an exopack."

She involuntarily pulled her head back. That sounded unpleasant. There were hooks involved? They would look _inside_ of her?

"I will just try the mask," she said quickly. "I see no need to be hooked up."

It was quiet for a second before he replied.

"Neytiri, there are no hooks involved," he said, and she could hear a smile in his voice. "They put stickers on your skin, with wires attached. I've got some on me now – it's no big deal. And I would like you to let them do it when you try the exopack, because being able to see what happens in your body when you try it will reduce the chance that you'll pitch over and die when you do come in here. Okay?"

She muttered something uncomplimentary under her breath, hating to be out of her depth. She wasn't used to it, and she certainly wasn't going to be intimidated by it.

"Very well then."

"Be nice to Rick," Jake grinned. "You make him a little nervous."

A few minutes later she was sitting on one of the platforms, trying not to fidget as Max attached sticky little things to her head. He'd also put a strange little clamp on her finger, which apparently made it possible to look at her blood while it was inside of her. Rick was looking at the screens on the wall.

"The left temporal patch— yeah, good to go now."

"Okay, we are ready. I would prefer if you lie down on the bed," Max said. "At least at first. We should be able to keep an eye on things, but if you do get unwell, I would prefer you don't fall and bash your head on the way down."

She couldn't really argue with that, so even though it was very strange to lie down and see both men looking down at her, she obliged. Max handed her the mask. Unlike the exopacks that most of the humans used, this one was connected to a machine that was attached to the wall.

"We will be able to mix the air mixture you breathe, so we can slowly introduce you to earth levels of nitrogen and oxygen," Max explained. "I would like you to hold the mask to your face. If you don't feel well at any moment, take it away immediately."

She nodded and held the mask over her nose and mouth, taking slow breaths. The men were talking about percentages and blips and squiggles on their screens, and she waited for something to happen.

"We're now at an 85 percent mixture, Neytiri," Max said after a few minutes, standing next to her head. "Do you feel anything out of the ordinary at all?"

She shook her head. He shone a bright little light into her eyes, tapped her fingernails, then walked to the other end of the bed to very lightly touch her toes with his pen. She twitched, jerking her feet away from him.

"Pupil reflexes and extremity sensitivity all normal," he said to Rick Sjogren.

"Okay. Slowly going to a hundred percent."

A few minutes later she swung her legs down from the bed and sat upright, mask still pressed to her face.

"Stay seated a moment, okay? I'd like to wait a few minutes to make sure you don't get dizzy or lightheaded."

She obliged, trying not to fidget. Now that it seemed the human air was fine for her to breathe, she just wanted to go into the building to be close to Jake. The men were talking excitedly about things like 'tissue adaptation' and 'blood gasses' and other things she didn't understand and didn't much care about, and Neytiri decided she'd waited long enough.

"Whoa! Slow down - lean against the wall," Max said when she swayed a little, her head feeling strange and cold for a moment. She reached out and put a hand against the glass, and the feeling faded. "Better now?"

She nodded.

"I suppose a little light-headedness was to be expected. Look, I don't think this is going to harm you, but I'd still prefer if you didn't stay inside for too long at a time. Maybe half an hour, then take a break outside. If you feel unwell at all, go earlier, okay?"

She nodded, willing to agree to anything at this point if she could just go inside, but she recognised his genuine concern. Aside from anything else, if she did get unwell inside, they would have a hell of a time getting her out of the building.

They took off the sticky pads and the wires, and a few minutes later she was out of the airlock and shuffling around the building, stooped over to avoid bumping her head.

Max walked ahead of her and opened the far door.

"Neytiri!" Jake was sitting on a bed, stickers and wires attached to him just like they had been to her.

"Sit still!" Francine reproached, attaching another sticker to his chest.

She sat down and grinned as he contained himself, letting the doctor work.

"How is our pilot doing?" Max asked Francine. "Will he be able to fly? And is he willing?"

"A little weak still, but I've given him a stim shot and he's getting dressed now. He's said before that his flu was pretty fortunate because he didn't want to be involved with the attack, so yes."

"Someone should fly with him in the Samson," Jake said. Then on a glare from Francine, "What? I'm sitting still."

"You're right. This is all going to be a complicated thing to pull off," Max said.

"Will Selfridge do as he promised?"

"He seemed on board," Jake said. "But we should keep an eye on him anyway. And if possible without humiliating him in front of the rest of the base – if he is to present this all as his idea, as a company policy decision, we can't be seen strong-arming him. Can we expect much trouble from the people at the base right now?"

Max shook his head.  
"For the most part these were base staff, people Quaritch couldn't use – and you know he even dragged the miners in, so that's saying something. I've heard a lot of anti-Quaritch sentiment over the past few days... and even without that, I suspect that if presented with the option of going home, most of them will form a line."

While the man talked Francine had given Jake a mask to breathe from, and she was half listening to the conversation and half checking her screens.

"How about the people being held in the forest?" Jake turned to Neytiri. "You've seen the most of them."

"Some will cooperate – people like Hansdovitch. Not warriors. But there are many also that were angry," she said. "Men in green clothes, and we took their big weapons. If there is to be an uprising, it will be them."

"So ideally we'd have the current people on base checked for weapons and into the mess hall before anybody not wounded starts to arrive."

"Yes. So we need someone to stay with Selfridge, and more to check the people for weapons" Neytiri summarised, "And someone to fly in the airship, and people in here to treat the wounded. And people outside to help receive the wounded from the airship."

Jake nodded.  
"Max, I think if you attached yourself to Selfridge, that would work best. You're going to take over command of the base, so it won't look like you've got him under shot. It'll be the easiest way for Selfridge to make it look right to the men."

Max nodded.

"I'll be in here," Francine said. "And I have four techs that will help, if you leave them out of the general assembly."

"Okay. A few more people to go with Max..." Jake mused. "Norm can help – he's with Selfridge now. And hopefully Selfridge will make Ronnie, that's his personal assistant, help out as well."

"You need a medic in the Samson," Francine said. "Someone to triage and take care of the wounded en route. Get Rick to do that – it'll make his day."

"I will help with getting wounded out of the airship – and we will soon have more warriors here to help receive the captives," Neytiri said. Doing something outside seemed like a good idea to her. It was good that she could be near Jake in here, but the low ceiling and closed off walls were beginning to make her twitchy.

"That works," Jake smiled at her. "We will need to try to separate the captives as best as possible – perhaps the healthy men that come back should be held separately."

"Marek is in charge of them now; he should be told to split them out..."

"Right. I think we've got it covered, and if we all wear radio headsets we should be able to adjust on the fly if something changes. That leaves me to sit here and feel useless," Jake said with a wry grin.

"Actually, I think you'll be okay with just an oxygen line," Francine said from behind one of her screens. "And we've got a wireless unit to monitor your blood gasses. Don't go doing anything strenuous, but you don't need to stay right here."

"Could I use a link machine? I could be much more useful in my avatar."

Francine traded glances with Max.

"Yes, I think that would be all right. Use the number one machine, it's easiest for me to keep an eye on."

"Awesome – I can go in and update Mo'at and the other clan leaders, and instruct Marek on splitting out the captives."

"We'll give Rick an extra radio set, you can.... when you see him over there," Max said, breaking open an emergency box and handing out the sets. Neytiri felt at her throat, feeling strangely clumsy, and realised that she was still wearing the throat band of the set she'd used before – the earpiece was long gone, so she accepted a new one and fumbled it into her ear.

"Right. I'm... to find Selfridge.... get that assembly happening," Max said when they'd all put on their radio sets and testing them.

"Neytiri?" Jake's voice seemed to come from a long way away. A blurry figure appeared in front of her. She startled as she felt hands on the side of her face.

"Oh _crap_!"

* * *

_To be continued_

Thanks for all the reviews - it's fun to have people think along about the issues Cameron breezed over.

Korrd: nowhere in the film do Na'vi breathe human air. Never happens. In fact, nowhere in the film does an avatar breathe human air - the base facilities are completely seperate. The room where Jake wakes up in his avatar body is a Pandora-air room; it has an airlock to the inside of the base (red door visible next to Norm's gurney), and the medical staff is wearing masks.


	8. Chapter 8

_**A Pale Blue Light**_

_Chapter 8_

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"Fran, help me - Rick!" Max was suddenly standing in front of her, hands on both sides of her face. "We need to ... outside right now. Jake.... wheelchair?"

"Yeah, yeah, take it, go!"

"Right, Fran, you ... ready – Neytiri, ... push off the floor, okay? You ... up a little, and we're going .... and get you out. Do you understand?"

She nodded, her limps feeling tingly and heavy. On his mark, she tried to find grip with her strangely floppy feet and pushed up, her back scraping against the wall. With a little help from Max and Francine she landed in the wheelchair, and the two scientists pulled her backward through the door of the medi-lab, her heels dragging the floor.

She was vaguely aware of Rick, mask already on, walking with her into the airlock. He stood behind her as the lock doors closed, and there was a loud hissing sound.

Then she was in the bright, high room that had open doors to outside.

The ringing in her ears faded, and she blinked, her vision clearing.

"Right..." she mumbled, her lips feeling strange and numb. "Let's not... do that again..."

"Gave us a bit of a scare there," Rick said, shining in her eyes with a bright light. "That came on pretty fast."

She squeezed her hands shut a few times, curled her toes. The tingling feeling was gone, though they still felt heavy and clumsy.

"Better now." She cursed at herself for not paying more attention to the first signs of it. On a day such as this, the last thing she should be risking was a stupid preventable injury.

Rick slid the little sensor onto her finger and spent a few minutes checking screens. When she looked up to the windows, Max was standing there, looking concerned.

"You're already recovering – good," Rick said. "Seems like your system can cope with our oxygen level for a short time, but then it overloads. Very interesting – I'd like to research this furth—"

"_Neytiri_?" Jakes voice came in her ear. He sounded worried too. "_Are you okay_?"

She touched the button on her throat. "_I am fine, love_," she replied in Na'vi. "I will get you your chair back."

It wasn't the most elegant manoeuvre she'd ever made, but she got to her feet, and was starting to feel more normal now, almost as before. Rick put the wheelchair back into the airlock, and a few minutes later Jake was at the window, a clear tube running over his face and under his nose. He was looking a little more clear-eyed, too.

She managed a smile, feeling embarrassed for what had just happened.

"You should go.. tell my mother I am fine. Don't forget to talk to Marek."

Perhaps sensing her discomfort, he flashed a grin at her rapid switch back to business.

"I will. I won't be long. Be careful."

She hated the idea that he would be there, waking up at the tree without her there – and he would also be here, where she could be near but not with him. It wasn't any less of a strange feeling now she'd spent time with him in his human body.

She nodded at him, hiding her unease, and turned away. Rick made some vague objections as she pulled off the sensor and put it on the bed, but he sounded more like he was interested in tests than that he thought her health was in danger. She took up her bow and quiver, and walked out toward the bright sunlight.

* * *

It was some time later that she stood out on the smooth, black ground of the compound and watched as Selfridge talked to the assembled people. She'd seen off the airship with Rick in it, and had made the rounds of the base together with a man called Darell, who was called Chief of the staff, and had keys for any lock on the base. They had checked all the guard towers and locked them, and then checked any outbuildings and locked those too.

She'd been a little wary of the man at first, but when he'd told her, apropos of nothing, that he'd cried when he'd seen the images of Hometree, it was hard not to warm up to him.

He was a large man, with a skin not pale pink but an intriguing dark brown. He had short, curly hair that was almost white, and a fatherly tone to his voice when he spoke of the scientists. That tone served him well when they found a young man in one of the outbuildings, hiding near the back of the space. He'd been there for days, from what Neytiri could tell, and seemed shocked speechless to see her standing outside.

After he'd brought him inside, Darell told her the man had hidden from Quaritch and not been out since. She'd known that there were humans who did not wish to fight, but not that some had been willing to hide for days to avoid being made part of the war.

That young man was here in the assembly as well. They were maintenance people, nurses, a hairdresser, a dentist, people who did paperwork, Norm had said. She saw their reaction as Selfridge told them they would be going home – they were happy. They were checked one by one for weapons, which yielded little more than a few utility knives, a hammer and a pair of scissors.

"_Neytiri_?" Jake said in her ear. She looked around reflexively, still not quite used to the disembodied voice. "Look up."

The sky above was a deep blue, completely clear as it was most days at this midday hour. But there, above the forest, she saw one dark dot, an Ikran – no, too far away to be that large. Toruk. A few moments later, as it grew steadily larger, she saw smaller shapes around it.

She'd never seen its approach like this, from a distance and with such speed that she felt the instinctive urge to run for cover. No, Jake would be riding it, would be landing right here in a few moments.

The assembled crowd saw them now too, seemed frozen to the ground as the giant creature passed over the compound wall and, back-winging, landed with a thud heavy enough to feel through the ground. It reared up and roared as all around it Ikran riders landed, and then folded its wings to settle down.

Jake carefully let himself slide down from its neck. She wondered if he was moving slowly because he was hurt, but then she saw that he was carrying something in a sling across his chest – feet dangling out one side. Pale brown feet. Human feet. Further up the legs the skin was angry red, mottled with black patches.

"Oh." She whispered, realisation dawning. "OH!"

She pressed the button on her radio set and let Francine know that a human with heavy burn wounds had just arrived, and ran up to meet Jake.

"Tru'dee?"

He nodded sadly.

"She had just been brought in when I awoke there. Two Ikran riders found her not far from her Samson. She used her ejection seat to get out when it exploded, but she is very heavily burned," he told her as they entered the side-bay of the building. A woman dressed in loose green clothes was just coming out of the airlock, pushing a rolling platform.

"They dosed her with Ma'xeo, and Mo'at gave her a second dose before I left." He leaned forward over the rolling platform and Neytiri helped him undo the knots of the sling.

Jake very gently straightened up, leaving Tru'dee on the platform. Neytiri closed her eyes a moment, pained by the sight of so much burned skin.

The human woman was naked, though scraps of fabric still clung to her burn wounds. Her mask had partially protected her face, though it was scratched and scorched and there was a thin crack in it that had been stuffed with clay. The men who found her had wrapped her in the huge leaves of the Muweï tree, which did not stick to the wounds. As the leaves fell aside, the full damage now visible made the green-dressed woman blanch.

If that sight had not taken her hope away, the full implications of Mo'at's decision would have been sufficient. A second dose of Ma'xoa was generally given more to ease the passing than to delay it.

"Please tell Dr Sequin as much as you can via the radio," the green-dressed woman said, before rolling the platform with her new charge into the airlock and shutting the door behind her.

"Francine?"

They could hear the platform being rolled into the medi-lab.

"Go ahead, you're on speaker"

"Alright, this is Trudy Chacon, pilot, crashed yesterday. Was found late last night by some of our people. You'll see her exopack mask is cracked – best I can tell she was like that for about eight hours before she was found and they tried to seal off the mask..." Jake trailed off, hearing the busy sounds on the other end.

"Yeah, go on?" Francine said after a moment.

"They wrapped her in the leaves and gave her Ma'xoa resin. Then this morning when she arrived at the Tree of Souls she got another dose because she was groaning and wasn't under deep enough to transport her here."

"Well, she sure is in a coma now," Francine answered distractedly. "That may prove a blessing, I guess. Hard to say at this point. Josie, is the tank ready?"

"It's cycling right now. Oh God, look—" another voice said. "—the rubber of her mask seals has melted—"

"Leave the mask on for now, we'll slice the rubber - could you grab the solvent?" they heard the medi-lab bustling with action.

"Is there anything else we can do for her?" Jake asked.

"Pray, if you're into that sort of thing," the doctor said.

"To be alive at all after such a crash, she is already under the protection of Eywa."

"Right."

Neytiri was amused by that dry reaction. She'd known that Jake's belief had been growing, but it seemed to be news to the other humans.

"Oh hang on, wait Jake, you need to come out of your avatar. I'm not liking the look of those bloodgas readouts. Time to come back out."

"Crap. Okay, I need to go out and make sure Toruk isn't terrorising the compound, and then I'll radio from the avatar house and you can get someone to terminate the link."

"Toruk? Nevermind, just radio when you're ready," Francine said, clearly focussing her complete attention on her patient.

* * *

"Will you release Toruk?" she asked him as they stepped out of the building and into the bright light of day.

"I worry that she might start hunting nearby and grab either one of the people or the airship with the wounded," Jake said.

The giant predator was still sitting where it had been left, its gaze tracking people and Ikran with an interest that ensured it was left a wide open space.

"Jake?" Max came jogging over to them. "Jake, can you _please_ get that monster out of here?"

"Yeah, I'm about to take care of that, sorry man."

"You have NO idea how disconcerting it is to see that thing follow me with its eyes like it's sizing me up for a snack."

"I did tell her she could not eat anybody." Neytiri thought she saw the glint of a grin in his eyes.

"That's nice. I feel so much better now."

"You're welcome."

Neytiri looked from one man to the other. It was clear that some meaning besides the words had just passed, but her understanding of the language did not seem to cover this.

Jake walked up to the enormous animal, petted its chin vane, and formed the _tsahaylu_ while standing next to it. He continued to stroke the hard skin, his eyes closed for a long moment.

Neytiri smiled to herself at the looks he was getting. The Na'vi warriors that had arrived did not think this was in any way strange, though they kept a wary eye on the toruk and its proximity to their Ikran. While under Jake's control the normal predator behaviour was curbed... or had been curbed so far. Noone was willing to take risks with their Ikran mounts.

The small crowd of humans had been lead into a building, but several stayed at the door, looking on now from the safety of shelter.

Finally Jake broke the physical bond between him and the creature and with a last caress to its face, walked back toward Neytiri. When he was out of reach, the toruk stretched its wings, causing the Ikran to flutter anxiously, and leapt into the air. The first hard beats of its wings could be felt in the air, almost as being shoved – then it climbed a little further in height, and glided to a different part of the base, where it settled on a roof.

"I asked her to stay on the avatar house," Jake said, "where I am going now to... err.."

"Lay your body to rest?"

"That makes it sound like a funeral – It's a specific phrase we use to refer to a funeral," he clarified at her questioning look. "But yeah. That. And then I expect I will be stuck inside until Francine is happy."

She walked with him through the green strip that ran through the compound, where wood structures had been raised and the humans had let plants grow. Several pa'li were nosing through the flowers, looking for nectar. At the far end sat a tall building made out of wood and with open walls. The toruk was perched on its roof, dwarfing the structure.

"I figure I am.. the body is- going to be about as safe as it can get," Jake grinned.

"Will you wait until I am back in the lab before you... before you go back to your human body?"

"Why, do you want to see it happen?"

"I have seen what happens when you stop being..." she ghosted her hand along his shoulder, "stop being here. I want to see what happens when you wake up there."

"Okay," he said. Then he turned and reached out to her, pulling her close for a kiss. Knowing they were out of sight of the others, she wrapped her arms around him, enjoying the feel of his well-muscled back under her hands while she still could.

It was something of a surprise to realise that she enjoyed being with him when he was in his human body – with all the complications it brought, there was something appealing to knowing it was his _own_ body. It hadn't been grown in a lab, an idea she still found distasteful. He'd been born in it, grown up in it, his life had left its marks on it. At night he curled up, and sometimes snored a little. If they had been able to breathe the same air she would have wanted to spend more time with him, gotten to know that side of him better.

He cradled her face in his hands, and she felt him smile against her lips. His thumbs rubbed her cheekbones, no doubt smudging the war paint she had not had the chance to wash off.

"Thank you, for asking someone to search for Trudy," he said softly. "By the time I would have arranged it, she would--"

Neytiri nodded, knowing he couldn't say it, didn't want to think about it. His friend would have lain there, waiting for a slow death.

"I hope your people can help her."

"Yeah," he let out a bone-deep sigh. "So do I."

The Toruk screeched, and they broke apart with a regretful smile.

"I will see you inside," he said, and they shared a look about just how strange this all was.

She watched him walk under the enormous wings of the toruk, which was basking in the sun, and disappear into the building. Then she turned and jogged toward the lab.

She talked briefly to the few warriors who had arrived, asking them to spread out over the base and keep an eye on any activity from the humans that was not accompanied by any of the people she knew to be on their side. The men and women sent out, she went into the side-bay of the lab building.

A woman in a white coat was standing at the window, perhaps waiting for her, and then gestured to one of the high windows. The link machines could be seen through there, and as Neytiri watched the woman walked to the one that was lit up. A few moments later the square box came sliding out of the circle, and the top of it opened.

She shifted her weight impatiently, because it hid from her sight the part she had really wanted to see. She saw movement, the top of his head. The woman was talking to him, reached out a hand – to steady him? She blew out a frustrated breath.

He finally appeared, with the machine that was connected to the tubing on his face in his lap. He laughed at the sight of her, nose almost pressed against the window.

"I'm sorry love, that must have been disappointing," he said over the radio link. He wasn't the pink colour she'd learned he was supposed to be – more pale, and grey, with tired eyes.

"Are you well?"

"It was more tiring than I thought it would be," he admitted. "Fran is going to hook me up to some kind of breathing machine – I'll be in this room."

She smiled, grateful that he understood her protectiveness and accommodated it without making an issue out of it.

"I will be—the airship is coming," she interrupted herself, picking up the telltale whining sound of the flying machine.

He briefly touched his hand against where hers still rested against the glass. A strange sight, hers so much larger than his, and she once again left him inside as she walked out into the open air.

* * *

TBC

_Been struggling a bit – busy with moving computers and just kind of not really with it. Updates may slow down a bit – I'm trying to stay several chapters ahead to keep some buffer for myself. _


	9. Chapter 9

A Pale Blue Light

_Chapter 9_

_

* * *

  
_

_This is air one to ground_ , Rick's voice crackled in her ear as the airship approached, skimming the treetops. _Neytiri, we have two heavily wounded Na'vi on board. Could you bring the gurneys outside from the med-bay?_

"Gurneys?"

_Sorry, the beds on wheels, you sat on one earlier_, he clarified. She nodded, then realised he could not see that, and pushed the button on her throat.

"Understood."

_Francine, I'm going to need five human-sized gurneys. These are all burn victims_ , she heard him radio the medi-lab.

Na'el and Tsuyo, who had been standing by to help with wounded, assisted her in getting the wheeled platforms out of the building. They and the human medics that were coming outside at a trot, waited at a distance as the airship gently set down. Rick could be seen crouching inside, checking the health of his patients.

Finally the OK to approach came through the radio, and Neytiri stooped down to avoid the still-whirring round wings of the airship and ran up to the side opening. The human medics approached from the other side.

She had to bite back her gasp when she saw the first Na'vi wounded. His identity could not be seen any closer than that he was of the Oma'eniya, one of the pa'li clans. His entire face, his chest, his arms – she tried not to take in the details of the burned skin. Eywa be praised that he was at least deep under the power of Ma'xoa resin and was not aware of what was happening.

Tsuyo exchanged a look with her – all conversation was stopped by the thunderous noise of the airship. He helped her slide the man onto the gurney as gently as possible, and she gestured for Na'el to start moving him into the building.

By the time she pushed the second gurney into the building, Max Patel was already working on the Oma'eniya warrior, attaching tubes.

"It's no good, this guy has got to go straight into the tank," he was talking into his headset. "No idea how long that resin is going to keep him under, I'm putting in a breathing tube and we'll take it from there as and when he wakes up."

_We've got max growth accelerant in the amino_, Francine's voice replied. _I guess it's pray all the way._

* * *

The next time Neytiri had a moment to stand still and reflect was three airship flights further. two more Na'vi had arrived – Mo'at had chosen to send only those with injuries that were specific to the humans. Deep bullet wounds and serious burn victims. The other wounded could be treated with a combination of Na'vi medicine and ceremony. She hadn't counted the human wounded that had been brought in, but there Max had said – his hands bloody – that they had been moving people to normal beds so that there were more gurneys available.

Jake was still in the lab area, behind a table full of paper. He'd been talking to several different people – Darrell one of them. She was pleased that he'd found ways to work without leaving the lab.

The last flight of heavily wounded had now arrived, and the next load – the airship had just left – would be lightly wounded or hale. She left Na'el to assist Max, and went back outside with Tsuyo.

Darrell had advised on a building where the prisoners could most easily be held. It was a newly built workshop, not yet taken into use. It was a matter of minutes to clear out the workman's tools, and it had toilets and washbasins. Neytiri had briefly gone in herself, trying to determine if there was anything that could be used as a weapon, but it was more or less a large empty space. Darrell had put a box full of the rectangular food blocks inside.

The Na'vi had never held prisoners before, and she was rapidly discovering why – the moment you took someone prisoner, you were responsible for their care. The healthy human warriors could be held in this space for a time, but by the end of the day they would need to be provided with more food and a means to stay warm through the night. She didn't know how long they might be there before the return to the space ship and their own world would happen, but it seemed in everybody's best interest that it would be as soon as possible.

She gathered the available Na'vi.

"The airship will soon arrive with the first Sky People who are hale or lightly wounded. We will await them, bows in hand, but not drawn. The ones that are completely healthy will go into the red door in small groups," she explained. "They call it an airlock; it protects the building from getting the air inside. Once the inner door opens they go through, and when the green light comes on the next group can go into the airlock."

She checked which of the warriors spoke English and positioned them closest to the door, leaving the warriors from the other clans to guard from further out.

"If there are wounded among the Sky People, let them wait outside; two healers will come to treat them."

She hadn't finished speaking or a car drove up with a woman and a man clad in the green clothes she had learned were healer garb. They stopped the vehicle at a short distance and got out, looking at the assembled Na'vi a little hesitantly. She smiled at them and approached.

"My name is Neytiri," she said, and she saw the relief on their faces when they heard her speak English. "We will keep guard; you were sent to treat the lightly wounded?"

"I'm Elly," the woman said, holding out her hand.

Recognising the gesture, Neytiri bent down to briefly hold it. A human greeting, but one that seemed to put both healers at ease. She realised they had in all likelihood never met anyone of her people before, and Jake had said that the humans were told stories of how dangerous and unpredictable the Na'vi were. She'd seen surprise in the faces, earlier on the day, when there were no more gurneys and she had carried a wounded man inside. It seemed to surprise the sky people that the Na'vi were willing to care for wounded humans. It made her wonder what sort of treatment her people would have received had the battle gone the other way.

She had to admit that without Jake's influence the wounded humans probably would not have fared as well – it was not that the Na'vi found pleasure in further harming wounded warriors, but that it simply would not have occurred to them what sort of care they required. His plan, quickly worked out and agreed on by the clan leaders, had also ensured that even the most rash among her people understood the benefit of mercy.

"We will triage here," Elly said, indicating an area to the side of the building. "I'll try to keep the sharps out of reach. From what Doctor Sjogren radio'ed in, the remainder is mostly animal bites and scratches."

"We find that Nantang wounds often-" she paused, searching for the word. Dr. Augustine had not spent many lessons on medical terms. "Get dirty? Thick, swollen flesh."

"Infected? Like cat wounds, I guess."

She didn't know what cat were, but nodded at the word. "We treat with the chewed out leaves of Niyalin tree, and leave open to the air."

"Okay, we will keep that in mind."

It wasn't long before the deep roar of the airship announced its approach. The Na'vi formed a wide circle, bow and bolas to hand. Conveying, she hoped, that while nobody had any wish to shoot anyone, it was an option if necessary.

She flinched at the noise of the airship as it landed, resisting the urge to shield her ears. As the first man stepped out, ducking instinctively against the noise of the wings, he froze at the sight of the Na'vi warriors.

Neytiri looked around for a moment, trying to see what he saw, and realised that nobody had had time to wash; they were still wearing warpaint in various states of smudginess, and some had small surface wounds that had mingled blood through the bright colours. For these men, most of which had directly faced similar looking Na'vi during the battle, they were clearly an intimidating sight.

Not only that, but she doubted they knew about the agreement between Selfridge and the Na'vi yet. Had they thought they were being saved by their own people, and would now be returning to a base that was still firmly in hands of the humans?

She gestured for him to walk toward the building, and as he came into motion more men started to come out of the open doors. When they were all out and clear of the wings, sixteen men in total, the airship lifted off again.

"Those of you who have wounds," she addressed the dour-faced group, "step to the side; these healers will attend to you. The rest, please step into the airlock and go inside."

The group stayed together, talking in low voices while keeping wary eyes on the Na'vi.

"How the hell do we know you're not going to lock us in there and then break the air seal?" one of them called. He had wide shoulders and a shiny, hairless head.

Neytiri tried not to stare. What kind of world did earth have to be to produce these ideas in its people? The Na'vi were not a gentle people, life could be harsh at the whims of nature, and there had been inter-clan wars now and again – but she couldn't even begin to understand what caused a warrior to think this.

"Yeah, and what happened to the others? You dump them somewhere?" someone else chimed in.

_If I could but ask Jake how he would respond_ , she thought wistfully. He'd have some understanding of what to say to these men.

"They are being cared for – in the medi-lab," the male healer burst out suddenly. "We've spent all day getting them inside and situated!"

The attention of the men suddenly turned to the healer, and Neytiri felt herself instinctively change the grasp of her bow, ready for action. Something about the way they were looking at him – she redirected her other hand to the bolas that was rolled up in her belt, the throwing weapon often used during the hunt. She thought she heard the word 'traitor' muttered among the men. The healer went pale.

The next heartbeat, her arm moved of its own accord, slinging the bolas at the warrior who was charging at the healer. The man went down hard, felled by a low, spinning throw that would have made her father proud. The other Na'vi suddenly had arrows nocked and bows drawn, driving the group closer together. The word _traitor_ still echoed over the tarmac.

Utter, frozen silence for the space of a few heartbeats. Neytiri tried to gauge if any of the others were prone to any sudden fits of bravery.

Just then, with a dramatic timing that would have made the best Omatecaya storytellers weep with joy, the Toruk reared up and gave a deep roar that reverberated across the compound. It could just be seen behind the corner of one of the buildings, and as one, the men stared at it.

Neytiri used the moment of distraction to approach the fallen man, Tsuyo coming from the other side, bow drawn. She hunched down, staring the cursing man in the eyes until he stilled, and calmly untangled the bolas from his legs.

"Stand."

He stared at her with a mixture of defiance and fear. Then, slowly, he stood.

"To the airlock door." She heard the echo of her father in her own voice, the ring of command. The men heard it too. They moved.

"If we wished you dead," she said to the group, calmly, deliberately, "you would _be_ dead. Now, go inside."

When all the men had gone into the building, she turned to the two healers. The man had regained his colour, but they both seemed shaken up.

"Thank you, for ...."

She nodded in acknowledgement.  
"I had not realised that they would not be aware of the outcome of the battle – that they expected to find the base a stronghold, still," she said. "I don't feel it safe for you to tend to someone while the group is waiting," both healers nodded. "– could you assemble a package of supplies so they can tend to their own wounds?"

"Can do," the woman nodded, turning toward her gear.

_How are we going to keep all these people contained and healthy until they can leave?_ Neytiri's mood was falling. What had seemed so doable before, now seemed an insurmountable task; keeping all these men healthy and contained until they could be put into the shuttle and sent home... she couldn't see how that would work, if they were willing to attack the humans that were cooperating with the Na'vi. Would it help if Selfridge talked to them, or would they see him as just another traitor?

The next two groups of men went easier, mostly because she'd decided that minimal engagement with them would probably simplify matters. They were simply told to get inside, that there was food and water for them.

The last group was calmer, did not seem as hostile. She noticed Hansdovitch was with them, and wondered if his insight into the Na'vi side of the situation had helped. Had he spoken to the people that were in the airship with him? It seemed so.

Elly had finished assembling a box with medical supplies, and Neytiri motioned for Hansdovitch to approach.

"Please take the healer supplies inside with you," she said.

Elly put down the box and both humans knelt down next to it. She showed him items and explained about disinfectant and something called dermal glue and other things Neytiri had never heard of. She hoped that the man would not be seen as a traitor by the others. Hopefully bringing the healer things with him would make up for it, as many of the men really did need wound care.

She looked at the colouring sunlight; it was going toward sundown. The day had been so hectic that it didn't really feel like it should go toward evening already.

Finally, when everybody was inside, she arranged for some of the Na'vi to keep watch, for their relief come nightfall, and then started to walk toward the lab building, intent on going to see how Jake was doing.

"Neytiri?" Tsuyo called after her. "Should you not eat, too?"

She smiled at his careful suggestion.

"Yes - you're right, we all should." But where to get food? They might find some fruit and roots within reasonable distance, but the wildlife was sure to have been scared off for miles.

"I can take a few people to go gathering - I've seen Jujeh bushes grow not far from the gate. And perhaps two Ikran riders could go further to hunt?"

"Arrange it, please," she said, and saw his eyes light up for being given the responsibility. The young man had only become _taronyu_ a few months ago. "We can make a fire over there," she pointed to the green area next to the science building. "There is also a building there where we could sleep - it's open to the air. The humans used it for their dreamwalker bodies. Toruk is guarding it."

"We should sleep there?"

"I would much rather go into the forest to eat and sleep, but we must remain here with enough to guard, and enough to keep a rotation of rested, well-fed guards."

Tsuyo nodded.

"I will go inside for a time - please arrange the meal as seems best to you."

* * *

TBC

I've gone back to earlier chapters to fill out some of the tertiary characters - chapters 2 and 4 I believe. No big changes, just a little more colour for the recurring background characters. Thanks for the reviews! Always motivating to see them appear :-)


	10. Chapter 10

A Pale Blue Light

Chapter 10

* * *

Things were no longer hectic inside the lab building, as far as Neytiri could see. Instead she found the calm, focussed atmosphere of those knowing they will be working into the night.

Max was working in the side-bay, dressed in green. He was keeping a close eye on machines and monitors while a healer was digging a bullet out of the thigh of a Na'vi hunter. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully while it was happening.

The other gurney was empty. Earlier Norm had been on it, or rather Norm's avatar, in that state that she could only describe as 'empty'. The body had had a large bandage over the chest, and some wires and sensors attached, but its colour had been good. She wondered what had happened.

Inside the lab she could see three large tanks of fluid, each containing one of her people. They were fully submerged, but they did not seem to be drowning; she watched a long moment to be sure and saw a pulse thud against skin in each of them. Perhaps the tube that lead to their face was allowing them to breathe. The burn wounds looked terrible, but even in the pale blue light of the tanks she thought she saw that the wounds looked less of the angry purple-red they had before. They had said that the water was healing...

Against the far wall stood three more tanks, humans floating in them in similar fashion. She recognised Tru'dee by her bodyshape - her hair had been shorn off, revealing the burn wounds that had been left by the straps of her mask. She was very still, floating completely unmoving, deep under the power of Ma'xoa.

"We don't know if she'll wake up again," Max confided, seeing her look. "Francine says that she is in a very deep coma, and that she might not find her way back out."

"I know," Neytiri said softly. "My mother gave her a second dose. She would do that only because there was no other way."

Max nodded. "Even without the resin, there's much damage - both the burns, and to her lungs. There's growth accelerant in the amino fluid, but even so - it could be weeks."

"And the others?"

"She," he nodded at the hunter on the table, "will be on her feet by the end of tomorrow, if this goes well. Leg'll be weak for a while, but I shouldn't think it'd be lasting damage."

Neytiri nodded, ghosting a hand over the face of the other Na'vi woman. She was one of the Sea clan people, according to her red war paint.

"Can you call me when she starts to wake? She does not speak your language."

"Good point - I will. It would be rather upsetting to wake up here - she wasn't conscious when she arrived."

"What of the other wounded?"

"He," Max indicated the tank with the Oma'eniya warrior she had brought in first, "looks bad on the surface, but all those burns should heal fairly well in the amino fluid. We dug two bullets out of his torso, that's more of a concern. We really know very little about the way your people heal, so it's hard to say how his prospects are, but his vital signs are stable, that is a good sign."

She nodded, hoping he was right. The Omaticaya had had to deal with some bullet wounds in the recent past; Mo'at sadly had to learn how to remove bullets from flesh. If the wound was to an arm or a leg, the wounded had usually survived. However they had lost a few people to bullet wounds to the torso, where the bullet had gone too deep and the damage was too severe. There was a wry irony about the humans, who had inflicted the damage, also knowing how to repair it. She had to assume such knowledge had been gleaned from much practise of wounding and repairing one another.

"The man there," he indicated another tank, "burns and a broken arm - should heal fine. And his neighbour, burns and a bullet to the shoulder - he's stable too."

There was a soft high 'clank' sound, and the green-clad healer made a triumphant little 'hah!' sound. Neytiri looked at the metal lump that had been deposited in a tray.

"Got it. Bugger was nestled against the bone. Looks like the femur stopped it."

"Amazing, those skeletons, huh?" Max said.

Neytiri looked through the windows, wondering where Jake was. She'd been so busy for most of the day that she had even stopped worrying about him, at least for a while. Most of the people she saw were in the green healer clothes, busy toward the back of the space, where the medi-lab was.

"Is Jake here?"

"I don't know, try the radio," Max said.

She shook her head at herself, still not used to being able to just speak to somebody who wasn't present. It had its uses, though she much preferred to see people's faces when she talked to them.

Just then Jake appeared from behind the big round centre desk in the lab. She put her hand to the throat-band of her radio, but he was already looking at her, wheeling himself handily around a corner and then approaching the window.

"Did you want me?" he asked. She thought he looked better - clear-eyed and with a grin close to his lips.

"I was about to call you," she said. Then, thinking about that for a moment, "Did you feel like I called you?"

"Yeah, dunno," he shrugged. "Just felt like you were here, looking for me."

Neytiri looked at him, wondering if it was coincidence or the result of _tsahaylu_. Bonded couples often built up a connection between them, an ability to sense some of each other's feelings, a closeness of mind. She had felt it during battle, and knew he had felt her distress when she was facing Quaritch. She had felt some of the closeness during the ride this morning. She just had not expected it to carry over this strongly while he was in this body. But then again why not? He may not have the physical option of tsahaylu in his human body, but his mind was the same. Some deep connection had been forged between them, and it had little to do with which body he was in.

She felt a surge of love for him, for how much he'd learned to see in the short time that she'd known him. How much he'd grown. He'd asked her to teach him how to see, and ended up teaching himself.

His face turned a deeper shade of pink.

"Well, I can feel _that_," he said under his breath. "Tsahaylu?"

She nodded.

"Wow."

"Have you been busy?"

"Yeah, sat with Selfridge and Darrell to draw up plans for what the base is going to be like once most of them leave - a new spaceship is scheduled to arrive in about four months, and I'm trying to arrange it so that they will supply us, exchange any base staff that may want to leave by then, and leave miners - the rest of the people will be going back home with it. So until then we would only have base staff, scientists and a few mining ops people to plan and survey operations for the future."

She nodded, noting the 'we'. It wasn't surprising, really, that right now he felt as much part of the humans as the Na'vi.

"Oh, and I've been assembling reverse exopacks." On her puzzled look, he clarified, "It's a mask that makes human air into Pandora air. They ordered them from Earth at some point so they could bring avatars inside for a medical scan, but by the time they finally arrived they'd found a different solution. They're coming in handy now - they've been able to move Norm's avatar inside, to make space here and to keep an eye on it."

"It's possible that more wounded will arrive - they will search until everybody's fate is known."

He nodded.

"How did it go with the prisoners?"

She let out a deep sigh, feeling all the frustration and discouragement rise to the surface.

"Difficult. They're.... they're very angry."

"You should rest a while, now they're safe," he said, concern in his voice. "You've slept less than I have, and have you eaten at all?"

She smiled at his care for her.

"Tsuyo is arranging a meal for us all, and I will go outside and sit down for a while," she promised. "I think those of us not on watch will sleep in the avatar house tonight, if Toruk will allow us in. It seems better than to head into the forest and not be near if things go... unlike they should."

He looked behind him suddenly, and she saw Norm in a door opening, calling something she could not hear. He spotted her, and waved. She smiled slightly and waved back.

"There's food - I should go eat," Jake said a little apologetically. "Promise me you'll take some rest?"

"I will," she said. "Go, eat. We can talk later."

The light of day was flooding away fast when she got back outside. A few Ikran were circling above the base, chasing one another, shrieking and vaulting like they often would just before settling in for the night. Most of the others were sitting in the tall wooden skeleton structures the humans had erected in this green strip of the base.

Everything seemed to be happening as it should - there were people on watch, and some of the people who would relieve them in an hour or so were gathered in the open space beside the building. One of them was building a fire, while a few others approached with wood they'd collected.

She looked around for a long moment, wondering if there was anything that needed doing. It didn't feel right to sit down while some of her people were still hard at work, but she couldn't think of anything that wasn't yet being done.

The fire had been built on the patch of hard ground - tarmac - that wouldn't be damaged by the heat, but it was close enough to the edge that she could sink down on the soft grass and still be warmed by it. The base was a loud place, even in the evening when the humans weren't active - the buildings emitted a low level hum, and there was an outbuilding on the other side of the landing strip that made an unpleasant sort of buzzing sound. Then there were big bright lamps outside, making her squint against the light. She leant back on her hands, staring at the sky, and tried to filter it all out, tried to hear the forest.

It took a little while, but she let her mind draw further toward it, the soft sound of the wind in the treetops, the distant chatter of Nytulsk. The sound of pa'li hooves dampened by moss. She had only been on the base for a day and she couldn't wait to get back to the forest, where the ground felt right under her feet and there wasn't so much noise and she wasn't constantly having to ask how things worked.

She spent some time talking to the four hunters that were present, trying to keep a feel for how her people felt about the situation with the humans. She soon found that Mo'at had done some more convincing to the clan after she and Jake had left this morning - and how could it only have been this morning? - and that the hunters who had come to aid her were all fairly convinced of the necessity of this chosen course.

That said, none of them were enthusiastic about staying on the base, especially overnight. She told them about the building where they would be able to rest, and one of them wondered if he would be able to sleep at all, on the ground. They were all so used to sleeping in the leaf pods high above the ground that the human 'beds' seemed strange and uncomfortable.

it wasn't much later when Tsuyo returned together with another hunter, both their pa'li carrying baskets of Jujeh roots and whatever fruit they had been able to find. Tsuyo's pa'li also carried a large translucent bladder that seemed to be filled with water. She had never seen such a thing, and examined it curiously while she helped him put it on the ground.

"It's a water vessel," he explained. "I asked the brown man, Darrell?"

She nodded in confirmation.

"I asked him where they got their water, and he said they have water inside the buildings, it comes out of pipes! But it tasted bad, so he gave me this," the young hunter patted the bladder, "so I could get water from a stream."

He unpacked the baskets, and Neytiri cut Jujeh roots into chunks while someone else raked some hot coals to the outside of the fire.

The last he brought out was three Het'ioang, small ground-dwelling animals that lived in the undergrowth and mostly ate leaves and treebark. Tsuyo handed them out, and the process of cleaning them out began immediately, while someone else fashioned a spit to roast them on. It wasn't much meat for the nearly twenty Na'vi that were on the base, but together with the Jujeh roots it would be a decent enough meal.

"Hu'jil rode out further," Tsuyo said when he saw her size up the amount of food. "He said he had seen Yerik earlier and wanted to see if he could shoot one."

She nodded. Hu'jil was one of the best hunters of the clan; if there were Yerik to be found, he would bring them one. Which meant that they would have food left over for tomorrow, and she could send out people again then. Hopefully the day would be less hectic and she wouldn't need to drive her people quite as hard.

* * *

There was a distant cry from an Ikran, and Neytiri looked up. The animals that had been playing above the base had gradually settled down for the night; this one was new. Across the green area of the base, Toruk rustled her wings in reaction.

Three Ikran were approaching, fast and in formation. She wondered who of the Na'vi in the forest might wish to visit the base at this hour.

Large Ikran, with a grey hue to their wings, from what she could see by the glow of the base lights. Sea ikran. As they passed the compound wall and its bright lights, she recognised O'hute, the red paint of her station standing out starkly.

The three riders circled the compound twice. Neytiri walked out onto the open tarmac and raised her hand in greeting, and they set down close to her, the wind created by their backwinged landing fluttering her hair.

"Hail, O'hute," she greeted, laying a hand over her heart in greeting. "_Oel ngati kameie_."

"Hail Neytiri of the Omaticaya!" said the leader of the sea clan. "I have come to see my hunter, and to investigate these Sky People with my own eyes."

She gestured to one of the riders who had accompanied her – he had another man riding behind him, hanging on close. "We also bring Noz'iteh, on the request of Mo'at. He was found this morning."

"Very well, let's see to him first," Neytiri said, approaching the Ikran. The wounded hunter looked pale and sick, with a thick bandage of absorbent moss tied to his shoulder. The Ikran rider was keeping him from sliding off. Neytiri touched her microphone button.

"Medi-lab?"

_"This is Rick, I read you."_

"Is there a Na'vi sized gurney free? Someone was just brought in, out on the landing space."

"_Coming up_," Rick replied in her ear.

O'hute was watching her curiously.

"What is this? You can speak to someone who is not present?"

"And he answered," she said, showing the other woman the small device in her ear. "The humans have many things used only for destruction, but not all their technology," she enunciated the unfamiliar word carefully, "is evil."

"Nor all their people?" O'hute said with a faint smile. Neytiri knew the other woman had observed the closeness between Jake and herself, the night before.

Just then Rick and another healer came out of the building at a jog, pushing along a large rolling bed. They seemed to startle a little when seeing O'hute, who looked very different from the Na'vi they had met so far.

Neytiri gestured them closer and then took over the gurney so that they did not need to step quite so close next to the Ikran, which clearly terrified both humans.

Together with the rider she eased the wounded man onto the gurney. Rick and the healer approached as soon as it was rolled out of reach of the Ikran. The healer immediately put pressure on the bullet wound on the man's shoulder.

"Do you have a history for him?"

That would have confused her if she hadn't heard that phrase dozens of times earlier in the day, and the response it usually received. She turned to O'hute.

"What do you know of this man? When was he found? Has he had any medicine?"

"He is one of mine; his name is O'ziteh. He was shot – we found him around noon. He has had a small amount of Ma'xeo."

Neytiri nodded and turned to Rick, who was quickly checking over the wounded man.

"He is of the sea clan – his name is O'ziteh. He was shot when flying and fell, he was found at noon, he has had some Max'eo," she summed up.

"Gunshot wound and broken bones, consistent with a fall," the healer said. "Bless these hard bones. A fall from their flying height would turn us to mush."

"OK, we'll get him inside."

They started rolling him away, and O'hute followed at a few paces distance. Neytiri grinned at the expression Rick wore when he looked back to see the fierce clanleader following.

"What will they do?"

"They have a healer room inside the building," she explained. "Your other hunter is there also."

"You trust them, do you not?" the woman asked with something of surprise. "After all they have done to your people? After they destroyed your home?"

Neytiri was silent for a moment. Did she? She trusted Jake; he had proved that he was prepared to risk everything he had and everything he was for her people. And she trusted Jake's judgement – if he was confident that these people would help, and could be trusted, then she was willing to accept his judgement.

She wasn't sure how to explain that to O'hute, who had seen her first human yesterday, when she shot an arrow through the window of his airship, killing the man.

"As you say, not all of them are evil. And many of them did not wish for this war at all. This morning we found a man in one of the outbuildings who had chosen to hide instead of be sent to shoot at us."

"He hid from a battle?" O'hute frowned. That was not considered a good trait among the Na'vi.

"Not because he was scared. Because he thought it was wrong."

"Hmm."

The bed was rolled into the building, and both women shouldered their bows, adjusting them so that they would not catch in the door opening. Neytiri went inside, now used to the confined feeling of being in the building. O'hute followed slowly.

"They live like this?"

"On our world, yes. You have seen the masks they wear? They make their buildings so that their sort of air stays inside, so that they do not have to wear masks."

"But not here," O'hute observed, looking around the brightly lit sidebay, with its doors open to the outside.

"This is a room specifically for Na'vi."

The other woman observed the healers for a while as they tended to the man, and then, apparently satisfied with their care, turned to her. Neytiri thought she looked like she had something on her mind.

"Mo'at also asked me to bring you news," she said carefully. Neytiri mentally braced herself. O'hute wasn't one to mince words; this was probably bad news.

"Tsu'tey was found this afternoon," the other woman said. "His body was found. I am sorry."

Neytiri sucked in a breath, feeling a little like she'd felt while breathing human air, head light and fuzzy. She'd known, somehow, that Tsu'tey wasn't alive, but to hear it confirmed--

"Would he have lived if we had found him sooner?"

"No, Neytiri," O'hute said gently. "He was already dead before he even touched the ground."

She nodded slowly, wishing she knew how to feel. She hadn't loved Tsu'tey, and things between them had been excruciatingly tense since Jake had come into her life. But the future that had been connected to him, that would have been, was so big that she couldn't quite comprehend the thought that all of it had gone, died with him. Everything that she had grown up believing would be, was now gone.

O'hute gave her a sympathetic look, and left her to her thoughts.

* * *

TBC

_I saw the film a second time recently and had the chance to look at secondary action & background action, which is how I remembered O'hute the awesome leader of the sea clan, and decided she definitely needed to be in here. I have retroactively specified her presence in chapter 4 as well :-)_


	11. Chapter 11

**A Pale Blue Light**

_Chapter 11_

Neytiri watched as the other woman went to the windows that looked into the lab. She examined the aminotanks for a few minutes, then reached out and examined the glass, tapping it with her nails.

Neytiri was vaguely amused by the expressions of the three people in white coats that were standing in the lab. She mused if the humans had reached some level of... understanding? Normalcy? With the Omaticaya, but someone so obviously from a different clan, with no previous experience of humans, was once again new and somewhat intimidating.

_Jake_? She thought deliberately, testing the tentative bond she had discovered earlier. A few moments later he appeared from the far door, wheeling himself handily toward the window. She had wondered, earlier, what use the wheeled chair was, but she saw it now – on smooth ground, it was quite practical. He smiled as he saw O'hute, and when he stopped in front of her, greeted her with a hand over his heart.

"Hail, Toruk Makto," O'hute said. Jake responded in kind, but could not be heard.

"_One moment, I am coming outside_," he said in her ear, hand to the radio button.

"He is coming to us," she clarified for the other woman when he wheeled away.

When he came back into view, he had a mask on, and he was accompanied by both Max and Selfridge, also with masks. They disappeared into the airlock.

"The man with the curly hair is Max," she said, wanting to get this important introduction of to a good start. "He has helped us, and he will lead the base when most of the humans leave. The other man is Selfridge. He has lead the base until now."

She saw O'hute's grim expression and hastily added "But he is cooperating with us now, he has agreed to our terms. None of us like him, but... we do need him."

The other woman nodded. The light changed to green, and Jake rolled himself out of the airlock. He repeated his formal greeting gesture.

"Hail, O'hute. It is an honour to receive you." He turned to indicate the men behind him. "This is Parker Selfridge, who has lead the base until now," Selfridge looked like he was trying not to show fear. Neytiri wondered how Jake had convinced him to come out here. O'hute did a stiff, formal greeting that he awkwardly returned.

"And this is Max Patel, who will lead the base from now on," Jake introduced. Max, looking a little intimidated but by now much more comfortable with it all, laid his hand over his heart.

"Hail, O'hute of the sea clan. A pleasure to meet you."

"_Oel ngati kameie_, Maxpatel."

It was quiet for a brief moment, only the soft talking of the two healers in the background audible.

"Let's go outside, so Rick has space to work," Jake suggested.

O'hute nodded and after a long look at O'ziteh, strode ahead to the exit, clearly eager to be out in the open. Selfridge hesitated. Max turned to Rick.

"How is it going here?"

"Bullet wound and broken legs... Fran is going to come do the extraction, I'm scanning and prepping for her," the man said, holding some device over the hunter's chest and staring at a monitor. "Then we'll get to the splinting."

"OK. Yell if you need a hand, I'll be outside."

Neytiri followed the humans out, noting that Jake was the only one who actually seemed to want to be outside. A sentiment that definitely wasn't shared by any of the other humans on the base. They lingered in the doorway.

"Are the banshees still out there?" Max asked her.

"They have gone to roost, most of them in the watch towers," she said. She had shared a few grins with the other hunters on noting that the Ikran seemed to like sleeping on the very structures that had been built to keep them away.

He still looked hesitant, and Selfridge even more so. She looked around the open space, trying to understand why. It was dark now, though you could hardly tell - there were huge bright lights that lit up every square pace of the base. Though the lamps wasn't as bright in this strip of green space, it was still light enough to see easily - even, by her estimation, for human eyes. They seemed to see a lot less well in twilight, but thinking of how they lit the base, was it any wonder they could not see in the dark if they blinded themselves with bright lights?

Max glanced at Jake, who had rolled himself in the direction of the fire and was talking to O'hute, who had sat down to be more on a level with him. Then he shrugged, and walked out to join them.

Selfridge hesitated longer, and finally she understood – he was afraid, even on this brightly lit stronghold of his people he was afraid. Pandora to him was a place of unrelenting danger and hostility. The night was full of unknown horrors. She remembered what Jake had been like the first time he'd met him, and Selfridge had a lot less experience with survival in nature than Jake had had.

No wonder they tried to drive away the trees with machines and the darkness with bright lights. The humans were afraid of the darkness of the Pandora nights.

_Perhaps it reminds them of how vulnerable they are?_

Some of the hunters had brought over logs to sit on, and she settled down in the little circle, leaving one log expressly open for Selfridge. The man looked around again, gaze lingering on the few Na'vi that were preparing food on the other side of the fire, and finally came over to join them. He sat quietly while Jake explained O'hute about the base and what they had agreed it would be like after the humans left. In turn, O'hute spoke of the human bodies that had been found in the forest, and explained the simple funeral rite that had been performed for them.

"Did you collect their dogtags?" Selfridge asked finally.

"Dog - tags?" O'hute repeated the unfamiliar words.

"They're identity necklaces," Max explained, pulling the little metal plates from under his shirt. "All the humans wear them."

"We thought those had spiritual significance to your people," O'hute said. "They were buried with them."

"Great," Selfridge muttered.

"Why is this a problem?" Neytiri asked, trying to understand. All Na'vi wore necklaces that were given to them when they became _taronyu_; the beads and braiding told the story of their family and their own life. She wouldn't dream of burying anyone without this marker of their identity.

"We use the dogtags to keep track of our people," Selfridge said. "Everybody wears their tags, and if someone died, the tags are brought back even if the person is not. We then know not to expect that person to return."

"We will go round with the lists tomorrow," Max said to him. "Figure out who we have and who we lost. We'll need to get numbers and names for the Venture Star, anyway."

"You're not the one who will be answering the questions of the families of these people," Selfridge said.

"No, you're right," Max conceded, and there really wasn't anything more that could be said about that.

Delicious smells were starting to drift from the fire. The Het'ioang were roasting and the roots were getting ready to eat. Tsuyo brought her and O'hute bowls of food, and then gave the humans in the circle an uncertain look. It would be impolite indeed not to offer food to everybody present, but there really was not that much to go around right now. Neytiri smiled when Jake noticed.

_"We have eaten, Tsuyo - thank you_," he said in Na'vi. The young hunter gave him a look of relief.

While they were eating, and listening to the humans discuss how to best go about dealing with the prisoners, pa'li hooves clattered nearby. A moment later Hu'jil rode into sight, a large Yerik tied across his pa'li's withers. He was greeted with cheers, and Tsuyo and another hunter approached to help it down.

Not far off, a loud roar rolled across the compound, followed by the unmistakable sound of Toruk pushing off a wooden beam and the wingbeats as the creature climbed into the air.

"Oh _this_ is not good," Jake muttered. She watched as he turned his wheelchair and rolled it to the other end of the tarmac square they were on. He hadn't yet arrived when the creature landed heavily in front of him, dwarfing the small figure in the wheelchair, shadowing the entire group of people with its outspread wings. The pa'li had bolted, but everybody else seemed frozen in shock. Why had it come now? It had stayed on the avatar house all day as per Jake's request. Of course, it could probably smell the Yerik...

Thinking fast, Neytiri leapt up and grabbed hold of a leg of the dead animal, the others still holding it. A hard swipe of her knife and the leg came off in her hand.

The toruk roared, causing the nearby Ikran to flutter anxiously, and then brought its giant head down to Jake.

She tried to walk calmly as she approached Jake, not looking in Toruk's eyes, not showing the meat. When she was close enough, Jake seemed to become aware of what she was doing, and she placed the leg into his extended hand, then walked off toward the side of the creature.

They watched as Jake fed Toruk the leg, and when it was gone, petted its chin vane.

"Christ on a hoverbike," Selfridge muttered. Neytiri had no idea what that meant, but shared his astonishment - she had expected Toruk to go for the whole Yerik, the pa'li, or even one of the people. At best, Jake would have been shoved aside.

No, he clearly still had tsahaylu with it even in his human body. She chastised herself for being surprised - it was a connection of the mind, after all, not the body.

After a few moments the giant creature grew restless again, making movements as if it was thinking about grabbing the rest of the Yerik. Hu'jil had abandoned it on the tarmac.

A sensible move, she thought; if the toruk wanted it, it would take it whether there was a person attached to it or not. Jake wheeled himself backward, and from a little further away made a two-handed gesture. Toruk reared up and roared, and for a moment Neytiri thought it would come down again and attack Jake after all, but he wheeled backward further, and the creature leapt into the air with a few wingbeats hard enough to almost blow out the fire.

They watched as it climbed until it was above the harsh lights of the base, and Neytiri thought she saw it heading south, in the opposite direction of the Tree of Souls.

It was completely silent for the space of several long breaths.

"Mon dieu!" someone finally said. Neytiri looked up to find Francine Sequin watching from the doorway, still in her green healer clothes. "He was talking about a _dragon_?"

Jake hadn't moved, and Neytiri went over to him, unsure what she'd find in his face - not expecting this faint, dreamy smile.

"Are you well?"

It took a long moment before he looked at her.

"Hello, puny human," he said softly to himself. "Entertain me."

She grinned a little. He looked a little like she'd felt when the Palulukan had offered to carry her. Awestruck, was the word.

_"That was close,"_ O'hute observed in Na'vi as they both returned to the group. Jake nodded at her. It had been.

"Why the hell did you call it over?" Selfridge asked, "are you trying to get us killed?"

"It doesn't work like that. I can't tell her what to do."

"What? But you've got that freaky mind-tentacle thing."

"Just because I can communicate with her doesn't mean I can command her. Or rather, that she's going to take any notice of my commands."

"I suppose that makes sense," Francine said. She'd joined them, pulling rubber gloves off her hands. "We can communicate - we're doing it right now - that doesn't mean we can just make each other do things."

"I thought that was how it worked - that you steered the animal via the link," Max said. "Isn't that how you ride the horses and the banshees?"

"Pa'li have lived together with us for a long time," Neytiri explained. "We feed them, and offer them protection, and in exchange they are willing to work for us. Ikran form a strong bond with their chosen person, and are similarly willing to do things for their owner because it benefits them."

Jake was nodding along.

"So even though I could make the bond, I still had to learn how to ride a pa'li and how to guide it so that it would do as I wanted. And with the Ikran, I had to learn what I could ask, and what it is willing to do, and what I could offer as a reward."

"We believe Ikran have a.. a shared memory, knowledge which gets passed on from parent to young," Neytiri added. "They are long-lived, and often return to their colonies temporarily to have young - we believe that they pass on knowledge about tsahaylu with the Na'vi, and the advantages that it brings. In the tales of old it was much harder to tame an Ikran."

"And with the... dragon?"

"Toruk," Jake smiled at Francine. "--and I have nothing to offer her - protection she doesn't need, and I can't offer her food in the amounts she needs."

"So how does that work?"

"The first time I connected with Toruk, She tried to shake me off... like you would a fly. Why would she do anything I asked? And then - I don't know why, but she seemed to think I was fascinating. She's curious, and interesting things happen when she's with me. That's all, really."

"So how did you get her to come over? And more importantly, how did you get her to leave?"

"I didn't ask her to come over - she smelled the meat and she was bored. Imagine a five-metre tall housecat that comes over and says 'I am bored. Entertain me.'"

"So how did you send her away?"

"I told her that there are many Tetrapteron in the lake not far south from here, and that they are easy pickings at this time of night."

They chuckled, and it was quiet a moment.

"_Can you please ask, how is O'ziteh_?" O'hute asked.

Francine looked up, perhaps recognising the name.

"I have removed the bullet, and Rick is splinting the leg. I have hope that he will be fine," she said, addressing both Neytiri and O'hute. Neytiri smiled and translated.

"That is well. We shall return, then, to bring Mo'at news." The woman rose to her feet, greeting the assembled humans with a nod, and Jake with a hand to her heart and the flash of a smile.

Neytiri got up too, and walked with her. She undid the throat-band that went with her radio set and handed it to the other woman.

"Please wear these," she said, and took out her earpiece. "I might need to contact you."

She showed O'hute how it worked, and then watched with a smile as she and the two hunters called their Ikran, and after ascertaining themselves that Toruk was not nearby, left to return to the forest.

Watching them go, she was envious - she had only been away for a day and already she missed it.

* * *

Not long later the watch had changed, and the humans had gone inside. Jake sat quietly by the campfire, staring into the flames. She sat down next to him, not wishing to pry, hoping he'd share what was on his mind. After a while he realised she was there, and reached out to take her hand.

"You seem sad," she said softly.

"I'm.... I don't know what I am," he said with a flash of self-conscious grin. "Just thinking about what a day it's been. And about Trudy. And about O'hute."

"Why about O'hute?"

"I guess I was surprised to find a woman leading a clan, and I shouldn't have been. Is it unusual with the Na'vi?"

"Not really, no, but also not common. It is more common to have two leaders, like with the Omaticaya. O'hute is the only leader of her clan."

"I was just wondering what will happen in our clan, now."

_Now both Eytucan and Tsu'tey are dead._ It didn't need to be spoken.

"You are Toruk Makto," she said, surprised he was questioning this. "You are the new leader. I will be Tsahik."

He was shaking his head.

"I'm no leader."

"The people would disagree – you've led us well. Our outcome wouldn't have been half so good without you."

"Okay, I mean I'm not a peace-time leader. I'm grunt, not a politician."

She didn't know what that meant, but waited him out. It seemed to bother him quite a bit.

"I mean, I've been Omaticaya for such a short time – I'm still a bumbling idiot about so much of your culture. I don't have the background. I have no idea how to be a leader, and I think it's wrong that an outsider would become the leader just because he had a decent plan on how to fight this battle."

She smiled at that.

"You are not an outsider. You are of the People."

"Yeah, but... I'm also human. You know what I mean. In a way I will always be a human. I grew up with synthrash music and mealshakes and, you know, _trousers_."

She grinned.

" That part of me won't ever go away. I'm never going to have the grounding in Na'vi culture that you have - and I think that's okay. I can still be part of the clan. But I shouldn't be leader. I would like to cede leadership to you. You carry the bow of your father, that feels right to me."

"I am to be the Tsahik of the People."

"You could have both roles? I don't know how that would work. I do know that you are far more qualified to lead the people than I will ever be. I will be your counsel in anything involving the humans, if you wish. But I should not be the one to lead the people."

It quite took her breath, somehow. That he put the wellbeing of the clan before his own ego. She knew that he still carried guilt for having betrayed her people; there were plenty of things that they would need to work through once things calmed down on the base. This reluctance to be leader did not seem to come from a sense of guilt, though. He seemed to respect the role of clan leader so well that he knew he would not be able to fulfil it – and that he did see those qualities in her.

She leaned in, bringing her face close to hers. The mask stopped, again, still, the kiss she wanted. She brushed her lips just below his ear instead.

"I see you." It was a whisper, and a month ago he would not have understood what she was saying, wouldn't have caught the layers of feeling behind that one simple statement. He turned his head to her and grinned.

"Even with the trousers?"

"Even with the trousers."

* * *

**TBC**

Thanks for the reviews! I'm having a bit of a struggle with the compressed arc of this story - ie, it has a fixed ending, when the humans leave in the shuttle. But I keep getting distracted by neat plot developments on the way, so I've given up all pretence of knowing how many chapters this'll be. A few more at least, I reckon.


	12. Chapter 12

**A Pale Blue Light**

_Chapter 12_

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Neytiri ghosted through the hallways, already getting used to the slightly stooped posture needed to avoid bumping her head. She didn't know exactly where he slept, but she thought she'd know, somehow. It would have been infinitely easier if she could just scent the air, but the mask prevented that. She suddenly felt a little sorry for the humans, who had to be this scent-blind all the time when they went outside. They missed so much.

Yes, this room. She leant down to open the door and slowly pushed it open. A soft light was on in a corner. It dimly lit the room and―the weapon that was staring her in the face. She froze. Behind it – it took a moment to focus on anything but the round dark opening she knew capable of so much destruction – behind it was, sleep mussed but sharp and hard, Jake's face.

_He was always a warrior_ , it hit her. _I just showed him the Na'vi way_

"Neytiri?" the surprise lifted his voice in pitch. The weapon sunk until it was pointing away from her. "I thought you were in the avatar house."

"Couldn't sleep," she said. _You're not there_.

"I keep forgetting that the two bodies thing is new to you," he stifled a yawn. "It's been my reality for months."

She frowned. She'd known that, but seeing him in a room here brought it home. Every time he'd fallen asleep next to her, this is where he'd gone.

"I'm sorry," he said. She wasn't sure what for. Maybe he couldn't quite voice it either. "Do you want to stay here?"

She nodded, closing the door behind her. The room wasn't large enough to stretch out, but she could curl up next to his bed. She sat down and watched as he hid the weapon under his pillow.

"Did you expect problems?"

He shrugged.  
"Seems to me better to expect problems and be proven wrong than to not expect them and get them anyway."

"I do worry about all those people in one place...talking about how they can take back control," she said softly.

"Yeah, I'm not thrilled about that either. The people in the mess hall are mostly base staff – a lot of them are eager to go home. The SecOps people we have in the workshop though.. I'm not too comfortable with that. That's a lot of angry people, and even if Selfridge sticks with our approach, I'm not 100% convinced they will follow him..." he mused."SecOps were Quaritch's people."

"How long until they could go into the shuttle and go home?"

"That's the problem... most of the wounded will need at least a week to be well enough for cryosleep. A few might need way longer than that."

"That is a long time to keep a group of angry men safe here on the base."

"Yes."

"Cryo-sleep," she formed the unfamiliar word carefully. "Is for when the ship travels to other planets?"

"It's a little like the effects of Ma'xeo, I guess," he said. "Except that it sort of stops time for your body. You go into a pod, like a little room the size of this bed, and they hook you up to all sorts of equipment, and then you go to sleep and you wake up when the ship arrives. You don't age, even though you are on the way for years. I don't really know how it works."

"Do all the people fall asleep at the same time?"

"Usually, but... they don't _have _to.." he trailed off into thought. "―you're a genius!"

She grinned at his sudden outburst.

"We don't have to keep everybody on the planet - we could send the healthy people up as soon as possible to go into cryo, and then wait until the wounded are well enough and send them up, and then they set off to earth."

"That would lessen the load here on the base," she nodded. "It would be safer for everybody. How soon could they go?"

"I'll have to talk to Francine and the Venture Star crew – there's a couple of things that need to happen before you can go into cryo. A few health tests, and you need to fast for a day. If we can set all that up, the first group could leave pretty soon. They day after--" he checked the timekeeping machine he wore on his wrist, "―today."

She reached out to touch his face, marvelling at being able to do that, no clear, hard mask in the way. He still had the tube attached to his face, and a sort of canister attached on the other end that was standing next to his bed. She could kiss him - wanted to – except that she was now the one wearing a mask. Frustrating.

As she was contemplating that, he reached out and cradled her face, and she thought he might be thinking the exact same thing.

_A few minutes won't harm me, I think_

She pushed the mask up so it rested on the top of her head. Jake's eyes widened.

"This is _such_ a bad idea," he said under his breath, before pulling her in, with a strength that shouldn't surprise her but still did, and slanted his mouth over hers.

It wasn't the same as kissing him before, not at all, but it still felt good and right and it made the bond between them hum with the mutual wonder of this, of being so different and still so connected.

He broke the kiss, breathing in sharply, and put her mask back in place.

"We should sleep."

She nodded.

"I think Francine is going to try to handcuff me to a bed if I don't take this whole recovery thing seriously."

She nodded.

"And it's really late."

Neytiri grinned. He was trying to convince himself here.

"You _should_ sleep," she agreed softly. "There will be time enough.. later."

They kissed again, softer, sweeter this time, and she savoured the deep sigh of content he let out. His body relaxed against her hand, and it was the first time since she'd found him in the shack that she could feel his back muscles soften.

"Do you need a pillow? Blankets?" he asked after the kiss had come to an end. He opened a small door next to his bed and pulled out a stack of folded blankets.

"It is warm enough here," she frowned. Then, regarding the hard floor, "I can sleep on the blankets though."

She spread them out and curled up, hand loosely curled around his, which was hanging over the edge of the bed.

"Sleep well," she whispered. He mumbled something in answer, and was asleep.

* * *

She opened her eyes and fought down a moment of disoriented panic. Dark. Pitch dark, darker even than the inside of her eyelids. Laying very still, her other senses filled in the context. The high pitched whine of electronics, a distant roar of some kind of machine. No scent at all apart from the slightly artificial tinge the mask gave to the air.

She sat up. Inside a building. Completely shut off from the outside world - not even light entered.

She could hear soft, slow breathing and reached out until she touched the bed. His breathing sounded like he was still in a deep sleep and she didn't want to wake him, but she knew he would be startled and possibly worried if she'd just disappeared by morning.

She stopped the hand that was reaching for his face, not wishing to startle him - he slept lightly, always on alert to some degree. The sleep of a warrior.

_Jake_, she reached out in her thoughts. _My Jake, I am going outside now_.

She wasn't sure if that would work - she had never been bonded before, after all, they were both finding things out together. She felt her eyes widen when on some level he reached out to her, his sleeping mind touching against hers, a vague echo of wind against wings, soaring over treetops. He was having a dream about flying.

_I will be outside_, she repeated. _I love you_

She wasn't sure if that would ensure that he would know she was well when he woke, but there was nothing else she could do unless she was willing to wake him, so she got to her feet. There was the slightest sliver of a red glow under the door. Now her eyes had adjusted, it was just barely enough to discern shapes by. She moved the blanket aside and made sure his wheelchair was next to the bed, and then quietly went outside.

She had no idea if it was still night, morning or even afternoon - there was no window to outside in the building. How could the humans live like that? So completely cut off from the world? It baffled her.

She finally stepped out of the airlock, mask in hand, and blinked against the brightness of the base lamps. It was early morning, the sky just beginning to colour, and it was pouring with rain. She took a deep breath of the damp air, enjoying her refound sense of smell, loving how the scent of rain overpowered all the artificial scents of the base around her. The sound of the rain on roofs and tarmac was strange but interestingly musical - not as diverse as the rain in the forest, but she liked it. It sounded a little bit like Eywa reclaiming the land.

She smiled at that thought, and stepped out into the downpour, face raised up to the sky. The rain pelted her skin, waking her up completely. It washed away the remnants of the war paint she had not had the time to remove, and the grime of war, the smudges of blood from her own small wounds and from carrying wounded. Her hair soaked in seconds, and she grinned fiercely, feeling renewed. It was as if Eywa herself wished to wash the world clear of battle, to renew and refresh it. War was over – reconstruction began today.

She made the rounds on the base, making sure that the guards she had set were well rested and fed. They were due to be relieved soon, and she decided to contact O'hute via the radio and ask her to send some more people, so that everybody could have more downtime, and there would be more people on hand if there were problems.

A few Pa'li were sheltered under the large-leafed plants in the green zone, heads low, dozing comfortably. Ikran chattered in the wooden structures. Toruk, as far as she could see, had not returned. Neytiri wasn't sure if she was disappointed or relieved, after the incident of the night before. Outside of Jake's direct presence, the creature was extremely unpredictable. She wondered if Eywa's will had guided it before, during the gathering and the battle, and if the new unpredictability was a sign that the creature was back under her own power.

She went to the avatar house and saw the first signs of awakening. The Na'vi sleeping here had brought the remainders of the food into the shelter of the building. From the looks of it there was enough for breakfast, and she could send Ha'jil out to hunt again, and another to gather more Jujeh roots.

* * *

The day wasn't as busy as the previous one had been, but somehow there still wasn't time to stop and sit down. Organising the hunters that were present for guard duty, taking some time to speak with each of them, took up the better part of the morning. Then Francine asked her to come to the medi-lab to speak to the Na'vi hunters that were beginning to wake, and she spend some time there, trying to explain human medical care to the people of O'hute's clan.

She was speaking softly to O'ziteh, who wasn't conscious but seemed to be trying to make his way there, when Jake walked in.

It disoriented her for a split second - she'd grown so used to him in his human shape that seeing him walk in like this, hair dripping and skin glistering from the rain, quite derailed her thoughts for a moment. He noticed, and grinned.

"You should have seen Tsuyo's face when I woke up," he said, ghosting a hand over her spine. "They'd put a sheet over me, and when I suddenly moved, he thought it was the dead rising. Or at least, that's what his squeak sounded like."

She laughed - Tsuyo had explained this morning that they all found the sight of the 'empty shell' rather unsettling, so they'd covered it.

"How is he?" Jake nodded at the wounded man.

"Trying to wake up," she said.

"I talked to Francine, and she's on the radio with the Venture Star crew about putting people into cryo-sleep."

"The guards at the workshop say that the men are restless - loud arguments."

"Yeah, that doesn't surprise me," he said under his voice. "If we want Hans Dovitch to stay here, if he wants that, we should get him out today - I'm worried they might turn on him."

"I should have kept him out when they were brought," Neytiri said. "I didn't realise he was in danger, at the time."

"I think we'll have the chance, today. If the Venture Star crew agrees, they'll have to have a medical check one by one. We might be able to find a way then."

She nodded.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked.

"I did sleep," she said with a wry grin. "It was strange to be inside a building, so cut off from Eywa. I didn't like it very much."

"I figured you'd woken and gone back outside."

"I did... and I tried to tell you, so you wouldn't worry when you wake."

His smile made her feel a little light inside.

He put a hand to his ear.

"Hi Fran, I'm in the sidebay with Neytiri. Yeah. 'kay."

A moment later Francine was standing in front of the window in her white coat.

_"Hey guys, I just came off the radio with the Venture Star captain. She is fine with the idea of sending people up in groups - they are readying cryo-pods now."_

"That's great. How does that work on our end?"

_"Processing people out means they get a health check and an injection of prep medication, then a 24-hour fast, a last minute health check and another injection, and then usually they go straight into the shuttle."_

"Okay, of course you guys have done this before, I didn't think of that."

_"We have, but it's going to be a bit more complicated this time because of the security situation."_

"Right. Yes. Will you need to get people here into the med lab? Because that is going to be a nightmare."

_"There's a clinic room on the other side of the base, I don't think it's far from the workshop where they're being held. The entrance is right next to the inner door of the airlock - it's used for dealing with mining accidents and other first aid situations. If you make sure there's two guards in the room... I'll try to avoid having sharps in sight or reach, but there'll have to be injection needles and such."_

"Right. I don't want people who have had the check to be able talk to people who haven't," he mused. "So it would be best if there was a second building where they could be held until they leave. I'll ask Darrell about that."

"Why can they not talk?" Neytiri wondered.

"Most of these guys are ex-military... they've been trained to improvise and to use anything for a weapon," Jake explained. "If they're on their own and under guard, I think we can control the situation. If one of them tells the rest what to expect, where to grab for something sharp... it wouldn't go so well."

She nodded, knowing he understood them better than she did.

"They'll also need to be told about what is going to happen - I don't think they even really know how the situation on base is at the moment, and we don't want them to be shouting the wrong things when they arrive on Earth," he mused. "Selfridge really should be the one to talk to them."

_"That could be dangerous_," Francine said. _"If they turn on him... Especially since you can't have the Na'vi guards come inside the workshop while he talks to them."_

"Yeah, I'm thinking it'd be better to do that out on the tarmac," Jake agreed. "Right. I'm gonna talk to Darrell and figure out the logistics of this plan. How much warning do you need to set up the clinic?"

_"Half an hour should do it - I'll have someone here get the personnel files and the supplies ready to go."_

"Cool, thanks."

"I'm going to find Darrell," he said when they were walking out. "How many hunters do you have here?"

"Seventeen, including me. There's a few people out hunting," she said. "Will that be enough?"

"Well, we need a few people scattered around the base... a few at the mess hall... if you could arrange for there to be more that would be good."

"I can talk to O'hute - I was planning to rotate a few people back to the forest anyway."

"Okay... we'll need quite a few people this afternoon, and then again tomorrow, but in between they will all be inside again. It's the times when we get the men outside that I want lots of hunters around."

"There is no second building we could transfer them to," he said the next time they met. "Makes things a bit awkward. We might have to hold all the men in a group out onto the tarmac, go through the workshop to check it for anything that shouldn't be there, and then as each of them comes out of the clinic, get them back in there."

"How long do those health checks take?"

"Rick mentioned five to ten minutes, so it'll take a couple of hours to get everybody seen... at least."

"A long wait for the last few."

"Yeah. Guess there's nothing much we can do about that."

"I have asked for ten more hunters; they should be here soon. Most of them won't speak English, but they're well rested, and have been instructed about the use of working together with the humans."

"Nice. Right." he looked around for a moment, his face serious. "I'm going to ask Francine to set up the clinic. Then I'm going to talk Selfridge into bringing the news to these guys. They deserve to know what's going on and why all this is happening."

_All they've done is to remain loyal to their original goals_, she thought. Not that she considered Max Patel and the other scientists and people like Darrell traitors - but she could understand how for the men in the workshop it might look that way. The people on the base had adapted to the new situation, and done what they considered the right thing. There was just something uncomfortable about treating these men like dangerous animals. If Jake wasn't so convinced that this was the right way to handle the situation, she would have felt reluctant about it.

_To be continued_

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Thanks for all the enthusiastic reviews! I'm going to stick with monday updates from now on I think, seems that more people get to see it.

**Beboots**: I quite like Selfridge in a way - he isn't a good man, but he isn't a one-dimensional bad man either, and it's obvious that he struggled with the balance between pressure from Earth and what he is comfortable with doing. His framework of how the world works just isn't compatible with Pandora. I'm glad you like my version of him :-)

**TopKat90**: you're right that in could work that way - I just don't like it. I hate the idea of the outsider becoming, in a sense, a better (more superior) Na'vi than the Na'vi themselves. He may have been in the right place with the right knowledge to lead them during this battle, but letting him continue to lead them amounts to what tvtropes dot org calls 'mighty whitey' (go read!) Jake is not a prideful man, and he has great admiration for Neytiri - the bow of her father in her hands saved his life, in more ways than one, and I think he'd feel it was wrong to carry it himself. I really like the idea that he would be happy to be her supportive husband, and advisor where asked.


	13. Chapter 13

A Pale Blue Light

_Chapter 13_

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As it did most days, the rainclouds cleared in the early afternoon, and soon the tarmac was steaming under the midday sun. A small group of ikran circled the base, and Neytiri jogged out onto the open tarmac to indicate with a wave that they should land there. They did so, wingbeats making whirlwinds in the steam that rose off the smooth ground. A tall hunter dismounted and greeted her formally.

"_Oel ngati kameie_, Neytiri of the Omaticaya! O'hute sends her greetings. I am O'maru, and we have come to help you."

"Thank you for coming here," she addressed all four of them. "We will be moving prisoners soon, and your help is very welcome."

"A small group of riders is also on its way," he said, perhaps sensing her disappointment in seeing only four hunters had come. "They left before us; they should be here soon."

"Very well," she smiled. "You can let your mounts fly; ours are around, too." she indicated at the tall wooden structures where small groups of ikran chattered. Most of them were basking in the mid-day sun.

She heard a drawn out whistle in the distance, and looking around, saw pa'li riders pass through the gate in the distance. One of the gate guards gave a one-armed wave, which she returned, and the seven riders aimed their mounts in her direction.

She smiled as she recognised Nehnet, K'otu and two other Omaticaya hunters; the others were of the horse clan.

"Welcome! Your help is most welcome," she greeted. She directed them to the green area where they could leave their pa'li, and then lead the entire group to the workshop.

Jake was there also, as was Darrell.

"Rick, Max and Norm are going to process the people in the mess hall today," he informed her. "Figured we might as well get everybody ready."

"Will they be safe?"

"They have some help, but I think they'll be okay - the people in there are base personnel, there were never really involved in the conflict. Some of them might even want to stay here, at least until the next space vessel tour."

She nodded and called together the nearby guards.

"Right. What we'll be doing is this:" Jake addressed the assembled group, and Neytiri translated as he spoke. "We will get the group outside to the big circle over there-" he indicated a large white circle halfway between the workshop and the main buildings. "They are to sit down there, and we will have plenty of guards, an inner circle and a few people further out. Keep your bows in hand but not drawn; no poisoned arrows. Non-lethal action if at all possible."

He waited a moment for her translation to catch up, and the hunters nodded.

"Then we will take the men one by one to the clinic room - it's just inside that red door," he pointed. "Two hunters will accompany them; one up close, one pacing them a little further away. A guard will be inside the building there to guide them into the clinic, and there will be a guard in with the doctor."

"Then when the doctor is finished, the guy goes back outside, where the escort will pick him back up, and bring him to the building; then the next prisoner is brought to the clinic, and so on."

* * *

Selfridge looked a little nervous. He'd changed clothes, strange clothes to her eyes, completely different from the loose fabric the healers wore. It consisted of several layers of smooth, creaseless fabric arranged over each other, dark blue over white. He had some sort of fabric loop around his neck. It looked rather impractical to her eyes - what if the end got caught in something? He'd be strangled. Strangely enough he seemed to feel at ease in it, and she thought it even seemed to bolster his nerves a little.

To her surprise Selfridge seemed comfortable talking to Jake - there seemed to be little doubt that he was cooperating with the plan as Jake had set it out.

Neytiri looked around to check the location of the guards. The outer ring, far enough away that they seemed to be lingering unobtrusively, and the inner ring, far enough away to not appear like a trap. Most of the newly arrived hunters looked a little tense. She hoped they'd follow the example of the others and that nobody would act rashly.

"_Right. I'm set up, Jake_," Francine's voice came through the radio. "You're going to come into the room, right?"

"Yeah, soon as things are rolling here," he answered. "Neytiri is going to make things happen outside." He glanced at her, and she nodded.

"_We have a mask for you here, so we're good to go_."

"Right, we're going to get everybody outside now, I'll radio you when we've got the first man on the way to you."

"_Understood_."

Jake looked at Selfridge. The man gulped and straightened his neck loop.

"Remember, they don't really know anything about the current situation - they only know that they were taken prisoner and that there are Na'vi on the base. They've not seen any humans yet apart from the healers. They might see you as a betrayer, so don't put yourself in danger, stay outside the group."

"All right. Let's get this over with."

She watched as he walked up to the airlock door and pushed a button.

"People, this is Parker Selfridge speaking. I want everybody to mask up and come outside. We've got medical care waiting for you here, and I want to bring you all up to date with what's happening and what is going to happen."

She'd been wondering if the men would be willing to come out of the building. It seemed that if they were intending to do something, to act up in some way, it would be preferable for them to stay inside, forcing people to go in. However, after a few moments the sound of the airlock started. Selfridge moved back until he was standing next to Jake.

When the first men came out, they blinked against the bright sunlight. Neytiri recognised Hansdovitch and the man she had thought was also a miner. The small group stood for a moment, looking around. Taking note of all the armed Na'vi standing around.

"Please go to the landing circle and sit down," Selfridge said. His voice wavered a little. She wondered if the men noticed.

They started moving, and as they passed her Hansdovitch caught her eyes. He didn't look well, she thought; pale grey and worried. He seemed to be wanting to say something, but the others kept walking. It was a good thing that they would be able to talk to him alone when he was in the medical room. She gave him the slightest of nods, not quite sure what she wished to say to him, but showing him that she had understood his silent appeal.

The next group of men were silent and grim. They had improvised bandages for their wounds, and some had washed their faces, but their clothes were still those they had fought in, and their eyes were angry and mistrustful.

Further along the tarmac the white painted circle was slowly filling with men, and she noticed how they had divided in groups. Hansdovitch, the other miner and one other sat to the side, separate from the main group. She wondered if it was simply a difference of opinions or if they were in danger.

When the last of the men were out of the building, Jake radioed for Darrell to come out and clear out the building - it was important that there was no food in there, as the men would need to fast. Then the Na'vi followed the last group and closed the ring of guards around the men.

When they were all sitting on the tarmac Selfridge began his speech. As he spoke, she looked at the faces, trying to get a feel for how his words were received. Not all of the men were looking at him; in fact a few deliberately sat half-turned away from him. He tried to couch the changes to the base as a new direction instead of a loss, but the men knew better, and with the armed Na'vi all around there really wasn't another conclusion to be drawn.

When Selfridge started to explain about cryo-sleep and fasting there was some grumbling.

"Look guys, I know this sucks - nobody likes to go hungry. But if you cheat and eat anyway, that food is going to spend the next six and half years in your digestive system, and then the term gut-rot is going to apply to you when we arrive on Earth, okay?"

Neytiri shuddered.

"This is not to torture you - I want you all safe and sound back on earth. Now someone is going to walk you to the clinic room, and the doc is going to check your general health, go over your medical files, and give you some injections, and I think there's an appetite suppressant pill as well. When it's all done someone will bring you back to the workshop."

If Selfridge had expected some sort of reaction or acknowledgement from the men, he didn't get it. His part done, he stepped back a little and nodded at Jake.

She thought for a moment about using her radio, but he seemed to have seen the same thing she had, because the first man he selected to come with him was one of Hansdovitch's little group.

The men talked quietly as Jake walked off with the first of them, two of the hunters accompanying them. Jake would go inside the building, guiding the men to and from the clinic room and guarding them while Dr Sequin worked.

She settled her father's bow - her bow, around her shoulder and tried to relax. It would be a long, tense afternoon.

It wasn't long after that the first man was brought outside and led back to the workshop. Neytiri stepped forward and indicated for Hansdovitch to stand up. His eyes fastened onto her with something of desperation. She gave a minute headshake, hoping he would not speak here. She flicked her eyes over to the building he would be led to, and he seemed to understand. Tsuyo and Na'el came to collect him, and she watched the three of them go.

Selfridge fidgeted for a long moment, and then turned to her.

"I'm going inside. No sense in standing here in the heat all afternoon."

She felt he should be there, that he owed it to the men to witness this, but could not think of a way to tell him, so she shrugged noncommittally. As he circled the group to go back to the base, one of them called his name.

"Mr Selfridge, where is everybody else?"

He stopped in his tracks, seeming surprised that any of the men would speak to him, and then stepped closer to answer. Neytiri met Hu'jil's eyes, who was closest, and he nodded that he would keep an eye on things.

_Neytiri?_ Jake spoke via the radio a few minutes later. _We're going to run Hans to the medi-lab, he's had a bad reaction to one of the injections. Could you send someone to bring him?_

"Mo'ruo," she turned to the nearest hunter. "Please go to the door where the humans go inside. Someone needs to be brought to the medical lab."

A few moments later Mo'ruo came back into view, pushing a wheeled bed with Hansdovitch on it. If she'd thought that this was an act to be able to pull the man out of the group, he disproved her by jerking to a sit and pulling his mask up to be sick on the tarmac.

She'd thought maybe the men would ask what was happening, but nobody did. Was it because they didn't care about Hansdovitch or because they did not dare ask the Na'vi?

A few moments later Tsuyo and Na'el returned to pick up the next prisoner, and she pointed out the third of the little group of miners. It seemed best to get them out of the way first.

* * *

To her surprise Selfridge was still there, talking, when the 8th man was brought to the clinic. He was standing close, posture relaxed, talking about... something about the running of the base, most of which didn't make sense to her. There were five men in conversation with him, who had formed a little half circle. To her surprise they seemed to be chatting quite amiably, and there was even some shared laughter now and then. Selfridge seemed to enjoy the conversation, perhaps feeling it as an acceptance from the human warriors. He had taken off his outer layer of fabric, more comfortable in the thin white fabric that sat underneath.

Tsuyo and Na'el reappeared to collect the ninth prisoner, and she looked around for a moment to decide on who that should be. When she turned her attention back to Selfridge, to her alarm he had sat down with the men, close to them, far too close for her comfort. She widened her eyes at Hu'jil, whose expression clearly said that he had no idea how to handle this and that if stepping in was required, it would have to be her.

She calmly circled the group to where he was, not unlike she would have stalked an animal for the hunt. Only this time it wasn't a prey animal, it was a volatile group of men, and she couldn't quite define what she was most worried about.

"Mr Selfridge?" she pitched her voice neutral and tried to sound unconcerned, not wishing to convey the potential danger she saw to either Selfridge or the men. "Your advice on a matter, please?"

He looked up, a little annoyed to be disturbed from his good-humoured conversation with the men, and she made a small gesture, indicating that he should join her. The men around him were suddenly no longer pleasantly chatting. A tension had flowed into their bodies, a darkness that had come seamlessly like twilight.

Selfridge seemed to feel it too, a definite sense of unease in his posture now. He looked at her, then, slowly, at the men he'd been talking to, then back at her. Everybody was very still for the space of a few heartbeats, breathless almost.

Then he pulled his leg under himself and started to get up, and -- a sharp warning hiss froze in her throat -- one of the men grabbed his neck loop and pulled it tight. Selfridge made a strangled, panicked noise and then silenced. Neytiri's hand flew to her weapon, but the others were crowding in front of the man now, blocking her sight.

She made a gesture for the hunters to lower their weapons, feeling the ramped-up tension strumming along her nerves, trying to stay in control of both her own reflexes and those of her people. Within moments the entire group was to its feet. Most of the men faced outward, evidently willing to defend themselves with what little they had - but she had no doubt that they were willing and able to do damage if it came to it.

"You need him, don't you," one of the men called. "Well, that ends now. I want you to free all the humans you're holding, and I want you to gather your people and leave, or we'll kill him."

Neytiri shifted her weight from foot to foot, trying to seize up the danger. Their plan, Jake's plan, depend entirely on Selfridge's willingness to return to earth with the right story. Without him, things would fall apart. Was the man actually working with the prisoners and was this his attempt to take back the base? She might have believed that if she hadn't seen the look in his face, the moment that he realised the men weren't about to let him get up and walk back out of the group.

"_Jake?_" she radioed. "_We have a problem out here. Please leave the firearm when you come out_," she said in Na'vi. No sense in bringing weapons into the mix when the prisoners were in such an uncomfortably powerful position already.

She took a deep breath, trying to find the calm necessary for dealing with the situation. The men would know, she assumed, that if they did kill Selfridge there were enough hunters standing around to decimate them in short order, so they would not be in a hurry either.

Jake came out of the building at a jog, coming to a halt on the other side of the group.

_"What happened?"_he asked her via his radio.

_"They have Selfridge."_

_"What? Oh crap."_

He calmly circled the group to join her.

"Okay guys, you want to tell me what the idea of this is?"

"Oh it's _him_," someone said with disgust in his voice. "We want you to take all your blue monkeys and piss off back into the forest, is what we want."

"Well, I want a pony and a plastic rocket."

There was a strangled cry. Selfridge's voice.

There were some hissed voices within the group, and she thought there might be a quiet argument going on.

"Taking this serious yet?"

She could see the face of the speaker now, and to her surprise he was one of the men that had seemed ambivalent about talking to Selfridge. He wasn't a small man, but he wasn't as wide in the shoulders as Jake in his human form. His hair was short and dark brown, and the lower half of his face was covered with short dark hair.

"Yeah, but let's not act in haste, okay? Give us a moment to talk here."

He strode away from the group, gesturing for her to join him until they were out of earshot.

"How the hell did they get him?"

"He was talking to a few of them - it seemed friendly, so I didn't see the harm. A while later he sat down with them, before I could stop him - I did not know how to get him out of there without inflaming the whole situation."

"And then?"

"I asked him to come, said I wanted his advice, and I think he realised when he wanted to get up that the men would not let him just walk out. They grabbed him, everybody got to their feet, I called you."

"Right. Okay. And now we're screwed. He's an important part of our plan, but they don't really need him. They can always claim that an animal got him, or one of us."

"What do you want to do? Give in?"

"God, no." He ran a hand through his hair. "I am so out of my depth here, it isn't even funny."

"Should I get Max?"

"I don't know... I'd like to talk to him, but do they," he nodded to the group of men, "realise that some of the humans are working with us?"

"I think they think we are forcing everybody, and that if they send us away, the base will go on as it was. Selfridge told them about the base, but I didn't hear everything."

She was annoyed about that now - it hadn't seemed important at the time.

"OK, so if we tell them and then things go wrong and they do get control of the base, all the humans who have helped us are in danger., they'll be seen as traitors."

"We should keep them out of sight?"

"Yeah, call me a pessimist, but... let's leave out their involvement."

"Pessimist," she said, hiding a grin.

"That's a figure of--you know that," he interrupted himself with a glance at her face.

There was some sort of disturbance within the group of men, and the Na'vi hunters craned their necks, but it was hard to see within the mass of bodies. She heard some angry, hissing voices, but couldn't quite make out what was going on.

Jake rubbed his forehead, and she saw Hu'jil give him a dubious look. A few of the others who were close-by also did not look convinced. O'maru, who did not speak English, was looking worried.

She walked around the circle to explain to him what was happening.

"Why does Toruk Makto care about the life of one human?" O'maru wondered.

"It's complicated, but this man is really important for the plan that would make sure the humans do not come back to fight us again," she tried to explain. "If he lives, he can make sure that they stop hurting our land and that we are left in peace."

The half hour that followed set her teeth on edge. Jake would try to talk to the men, seemingly simply making conversation, and the men kept interrupting each other. They did not seem able to agree on exactly what they wanted and what they should do.

The next time Jake stepped back out, a grim set to his eyes, she stepped close.

"You know, if we do go back to the forest, it doesn't really matter to us if Selfridge lives or dies," said in a low tone that only he could hear. At his surprised look she shrugged. "Something to think about."

"You're right, but it would mean giving up the base, and any control over what reaches Earth about what's happened here."

"Of course it's not what we _want_..."

"I'm going to see if Max has ideas about this, okay?"

He nodded, a hint of defeat in his eyes.

* * *

She radioed Max as she walked toward the mess hall, informing him of the situation, and he met her outside, a small machine in his hands.

"How is it going inside?"

"Better than with you. We've got a few people who chose to stay, to keep the base running, and the rest is cooperating. They're about half way through the medical checks now. How is Jake holding up?"

"He's... running out of ideas. He is trying to stretch time, but... I'm not sure if there is anything to talk about," she shared. "We either go, or we don't."

"There's... not a lot of room for compromise here, no," Max agreed. "Well, let's not give up what we've fought for. Even if it comes to going through without Selfridge, we've got a card up our sleeve - Grace and I have documented everything that's been going on here, we have videologs and footage of every time that the RDA has treated your people poorly. If that was sent to the right people on Earth, and we have those contacts, then it could maybe raise enough of a stink that the RDA would meet a whole lot of resistance if they sent reinforcements."

They came around the corner and stood still for a long moment, taking in the scene in the distance. The closely-crowded circle of standing men, surrounded by a much wider, looser circle of Na'vi hunters, bows in hand. Jake was part of the circle, a little closer than the others, still talking. She admired his perseverance - talking seemed pretty hopeless, but he'd said that things would really kick off when they stopped talking, so he continued.

"Oh dear," she heard Max murmur. "And Selfridge is inside that group?"

She nodded.

"They must be burning hot, starting to get thirsty," he mused. Then, on the radio; "Francine? - Hey, do you have a mood pacifier that is undetectable in water? ....that'd do it. Could you prepare a load of bottles? We might want to offer the men water soon -- yeah... just make it a low dose, just enough to have a calming effect but not enough for anyone to really notice -- OK, thanks."

She gave him a questioning look.

"We have medication that can make people feel calm and peaceful," he explained. "Makes things less likely to turn dramatic. Not exactly a shining example of an ethical approach to hostage situations, but it beats ending up with dead people."

"You plan to negotiate with the men?"

"Depends on what Jake wants, but yes."

They started walking to the distant group, she moderating her strides so that Max could keep up. The heat of afternoon was really weighing down now, all the moisture of the morning rains already evaporated. Just relentless heat that made the tarmac painful to her bare feet. She suddenly saw the point of the shoes the dreamwalkers had worn.

"I wonder how they imagine it would go if they took back control. What on earth they would do with all the wounded..."

"They assume that you are only helping us because we force you to. Jake thinks it would be safer to leave them under that impression, in case they succeed - if they know you are helping us, they would turn against you then."

"I guess that's the risk we... all... took--" he trailed off.

Neytiri looked down to the man, wondering why he stopped speaking, and he stood frozen, mouth a little open. She followed his gaze. Up. A long way up.

Toruk flew there, using the thermal airstreams above the base to propel her with little need of her wings. Gliding. A creature that large should not be able to glide. She was circling, slow, lazy loops around the base perimeter.

Hunting.

"Oh, Eywa," Neytiri whispered.

The words hadn't left her lips before Toruk went into a dive.

"Is it - oh God--" Max took a few steps forward, then halted again.

"Jake - JAKE!" Neytiri had no such hesitations. She threw herself forward into a run, no thought, all instinct.

The giant creature was in a shallow dive, heading straight for the group of men. Neytiri tried to shout, but no sound seemed to make it out of her mouth.

Jake looked up - the next moment everybody had seen it.

Toruk bore down, shadow preceding her over the tarmac like an ominous cloud. Somebody screamed, and the men scattered, but too late, much too late.

Neytiri watched in horror as the creature snatched up someone in its claws. Then, with a beat of it wings that bowled over anyone still standing, it turned its momentum forward and up, and in an eery silence rose back into the air.

It seemed like hours later when she finally arrived with the group, though she knew it had been seconds. The attack had been so sudden and so fast that it seemed surreal that the creature was already gone, leaving both men and Na'vi behind in shock.

"No!" she heard a harsh whisper. Jake. He was watching Toruk disappear in the distance, a horrified look on his face.

Hu'jil was the first to gather his wits about him. He stepped forward among the humans, most of which were still on the ground, and bodily lifted Selfridge out from between them. Striding out of the group again, he set the man on his feet in front of Jake, who finally managed to turn his eyes away from the distant flying shape.

"Let's finish this," Hu'jil said.

Jake shook himself out of his trance and nodded, gesturing for Selfridge to walk with him, toward Max, who was still underway, looking very warm and tired in the midday sun.

Neytiri looked at the group of men and abruptly turned her mind to practicalities.

"Right." She looked around. Now she thought of it, everybody looked very warm, and some of the men looked redder than she thought was healthy. They were quiet, shellshocked maybe. Some talked quietly. The name of Toruk's victim seemed to be - seemed to have been - Craigson. She wondered if he had been the man who had talked to Jake. She couldn't see him now.

All resistance seemed to have gone out of the group, snatched out of them by toruk's giant talons.

"Darrell?" she said, pushing the button of her radio.

"Neytiri?"

"Do you have something to make shade out here on the tarmac?"

"Yeah, we've got some awnings. Want me to come set them up for you?"

"Please."

The next thing she did was to request for Francine to set up her clinic outside, about fifty paces from where the group was - something that would speed up the proceedings. Within a few minutes Darrell and a helper arrived and spread out strange shapes of fabric on the ground, then attached some sort of machine which blew air into them. He anchored the legs to the ground, and before long all the men could sit in the shade. He put up a second awning where she indicated she wanted Francine to set up.

To her surprise Jake came outside together with Francine and Elly, one of the healers, helping them bring over the things she needed. Darrell brought out a table and some chairs, and it wasn't long before Francine had resumed the medical checks, helped by Elly and with Jake standing guard close by. He looked very grave. She wanted to go speak to him, so she could understand what had happened, but this wasn't the moment.

Francine, who hadn't witnessed the attack, seemed to be the only one who could find some levity in the situation.

"I'm wondering," she said over the radio when waiting for her next patient, "Is Dragon Ex Machina in the hostage negotiations handbook?"

* * *

**to be continued**

A double chapter to make up for the extra week it took to get this out..  
Thanks for the reviews! A few replies to specific things that came up...

SGT CJC: no really, read the 'mighty whitey' thing on tvtropes - you'll understand exactly why I'm avoiding that development.

ferdelance: thanks! I was sitting in the cinema going 'What? Just like that??' and just had to write about it :-) I'm glad you like it.

Hmpf: yeah, no new chapters as long as you don't review.. get to it! Heh. And if I can send my horse in a certain direction just by the movements of my eyes, I don't think it's all that strange for Jake to give Toruk a direction through the (inactive) bond. All it needs if a 'food that way' sort of thought, no?

I don't think Jake and Neytiri are telepathic as such.. at least not in the way of words and concise thoughts making it across. Vague feelings do transfer though (in my idea) because after establishing their bond they would be more attuned to each other's minds. Anyway, thanks for your review, always fun to see what you think :-)


	14. Chapter 14

_**A Pale Blue Light**_

Chapter 14

* * *

That evening, after they had both eaten, Neytiri finally got the chance to talk to Jake alone. He was back in his human body, which did not bother either of them. She was sat leaning against the base of one of the wooden structures in the green area, away from the cooking fire and the other Na'vi, and she had helped him out of his chair to lean against her side. They were both tired - it had been a long, tense day, but they had managed to get everybody who was leaving and healthy enough to go now, through the checkup process.

"Hans is already feeling better," he was telling her. "Francine gave him something to make him feel ill. He was very worried, because some of the men had been talking about using him to put pressure on us. They knew we'd talked to him and he'd been helpful to us, so I guess they thought they could use him against us."

"But they got Selfridge instead."

"Yeah, he was worth more. Hans says the two other miners might want to stay here as well - we can ask them tomorrow at the last check."

She nodded, and they were silent for a long moment. Neytiri closed her eyes and concentrated on the distant sounds of the forest. Hopefully it wouldn't be long until she could go back there, even if only for a short time. She would have to ride - how she missed Seze! It would be a struggle to get used to a new ikran, once she found one. She idly wondered where Jake's ikran was.

"Jake?"

"Hmm?" he rubbed his head against her arm, nestling closer against her.

"What happened... with Toruk?"

He was silent for what seemed like a long time.

"I didn't see her until she dove," he said under his breath. "And I tried to call her, tried to... I don't know. To make contact with her somehow, you know? But there was nothing, no recognition, no interest. She had her eyes on a prey and she wasn't going to let me distract her."

"And she grabbed... exactly the right person?"

He grimaced.

"It looks that way, doesn't it? That's the disturbing thing. She picked him out - as if on some level she was still connected to me, and felt he was someone I wanted rid of. Kind of a horrible thought. I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

"No," she agreed.

No, he wouldn't. The situation has been infinitely more complicated to him than it had been to her. If she had seen a way to take out the man who was holding Selfridge without any danger for Selfridge, she would have done it in an instant. It had been horrible to see someone snatched up by Toruk, to hear the scream being cut off, but it had also effectively solved the problem, and she could not feel regretful for that.

For Jake it was more complicated, and she understood that he still strongly identified with the men.

"So tomorrow evening they will go into the shuttle?"

"Yeah, everybody who is healthy enough to go. They'll go into cryo-sleep, and then in a week or so the rest will be healed enough to go up, and then they'll leave for Earth."

"Are you sure they won't just return with more bombs?"

"No."

She blinked at that.

"No?"

"No, I'm not sure," he clarified. "I _think_ Selfridge will follow the plan - at least, I think that right now he intends to follow the plan. What happens when they arrive on Earth is kinda hard to say."

"We'll have to spend the next two generations wondering if they'll come after all?"

"I hope not. The change has already been communicated to the space vessels that are underway, so while it'll be a bit chaotic in the next few years as those arrive, I think if they cooperate that will help for the company not to pull out the big guns. And we have another card up our sleeve. Max and Grace have all sorts of material on how the RDA treated the Na'vi here."

She nodded. "Max told me about that."

"We're looking at a way to put that information safe somewhere, and so that it would be released to the media automatically if the RDA ever went back on what we've agreed to here."

"That's possible? How?"

"Err - it's done on - we can upload --" he trailed off, one hand moving idly like he was trying to pluck the words from the air. "You know, I have absolutely no idea how I would explain to you what the internet even _is_. Sorry. If you really want to know, ask Max, he'll probably have the words for it."

She chuckled. It was a strange thought that some things on earth were so different that he couldn't even begin to find words to explain them to her.

"You should mention this information to Selfridge, I think," she said after another moment. "So he knows that we are not completely depending on his word."

"Yeah, I think we'll do that," he grinned.

"And after they leave, what happens?"

"I don't know. We could probably send most of the hunters back to the clans."

She nodded - she had already sent some people back once the excitement of the evening was over, with the request that they return the following afternoon.

"I would like to go myself, to thank the leaders of the clans before they return home. We won't be much needed here until the last people are ready to ship out, I think."

"But you will be here," she said with a frown. At his confused look she took his hand into her own. "Your - your avatar body will be with me. But you.. will be here."

He gave her a sweet, sad smile.

"That's how it is." he brought her hand up to his face, and then seemed to remember that he was wearing a mask. Lowered the hand again.

"I'm stuck going back and forth. Unless Mo'at could do one of those ceremonies..." he trailed off. "Could she do that? Let me be... reborn, I guess, in the avatar body?"

"It would be very dangerous," she said, not liking the idea at all. The memory of watching Grace's face, anxiously wishing for her eyes to open, was still fresh. "You could die."

He was silent for a long time. She tried to imagine it, taking the mask off his human face, kissing him a last time, and then... looking at his other face, forcing air into her lungs while she waited.. waited...

"If you could walk, would you still want it?"

He'd tried to explain to her once, in a dark hour before the battle, how he'd ended up betraying the Na'vi. How he'd been offered the healing of his legs in exchange for information, and how he'd come to hate himself for accepting.

She'd been angry with him for his betrayal, and just as angry with the people who withheld healing he so clearly needed and then used it to manipulate him.

"I don't think it was ever really about the walking," he said finally. "I didn't really understand that myself, before - before everything. I thought I accepted Quaritch's offer because I wanted to walk again, but... it's hard to explain."

She was silent, hoping he would try anyway.

"I was a marine all my life. It wasn't just what I was, it was _who_ I was. And then when I got shot... I didn't stop being who I was, you know? I couldn't do the job anymore, they fixed me up and sent me out to be a civilian, and there I was... a marine who got dumped because he wasn't useful anymore. I never managed to find a way to live as anything other than an ex-marine. Then when Tom - my brother - died, there really wasn't... there really wasn't any reason to stay on earth."

She stroked her thumb along the back of his hand, wanting him to feel she was there without distracting him.

"Then I come here, and I'm not exactly welcome, 'cause everybody expects smart and educated Tom, not his crippled grunt of a brother, and suddenly there's this colonel who thinks well of me, and who thinks I could be really useful. And he and Selfridge listen to me, and... and it felt like I _mattered_."

"Then later I learned to live with the Na'vi, and I... I found someone to be. And I started to hate that the only way I was allowed to be that person and be with you, was if I continued to give them information they could use."

Her heart broke a little for him, for how hopeless his old life must have been. She hadn't been kind, those first few weeks - in fact she had tried hard to discourage him, so that he would leave. The clan had not been welcoming to him. She had wondered what had made him fight so hard to integrate himself with the people, and now she knew.

"So no, it's not about the legs," he finally said. "I don't want it to always be like this, half in one body and half in the other. I mean... every day I'd be with the clan, with you. And every night I would be here, in my other life. Like I was just pretending to be part of the clan. I don't want to spend the rest of my life like that... "

She gave a little squeeze in his hand, understanding how much he wanted to truly feel part of the clan, and how impossible it was right now.

"I want to really be with the people, and with you..."

She heard the longing in his voice, and felt a wave of warmth and love for him, for this strange man that came from such a different world and had fought so hard for hers.

"We can ask Mo'at what she thinks," she conceded. "The thought scares me, but I understand... I understand that you would be prepared to take the risk."

He turned to face her and laid his hand along her cheek. His eyes spoke of love and understanding, and gratitude.

"_You see me._"

* * *

Neytiri woke with a start, suddenly aware of the strange, flat surface she had been sleeping on. It was a heightened surface covered with something soft, and it was the right size for her body, but it felt weird and motionless, not at all like the cocoons she was used to sleeping in. The avatar house was still a curiosity - built for Na'vi bodies, but by human minds, with what humans thought was important if you were ten feet tall.

At least it was open to the outside air.

She heard rain on the roof, not a downpour but a gentle trickle. As she got to her feet she grimaced - her feet were sore. Too long standing on the hot tarmac the day before.

The wet grass outside looked appealing. Neytiri walked past the deathly still body of Jake - covered up with a sheet, as none of them like to look at it - and went outside, her head clearing as the cool rain washed her skin. The grass felt wonderful on her sore feet as she thought about what the day would be like.

Jake had mentioned that most of the humans that were not leaving would be busy packing up the belongings of those who were returning to earth. Each human had arrived on Pandora with a bag and a metal crate; nobody had been allowed to return to their sleeping spaces or access their things after the battle. She understood that it might be dangerous to let them pack their own things, but she was still impressed and somewhat surprised that the humans were willing to spend the better part of a day packing up the belongings of the prisoners.

Of course, Jake had mentioned, shipping them home with their belongings helped to make them look less like prisoners on arrival; it would look more like a normal reorganisation of the way the base was lead, as if these people were no longer required and could therefore return to Earth.

It meant that she would be in charge of base security, and probably not see much of anybody until the afternoon, when the shuttle would arrive.

"Ohh, feels good," Na'el said, slowly stepping toward her through the grass. Neytiri greeted the other woman with a smile.

"Your feet hurt too?"

"They do. I hope it will keep raining today!"

"Neytiri!" she looked up to the house, to see that it was O'maru calling her. He was holding up something small. "This is making noise?"

"It's my radio set," she replied, accepting it from him. "Thank you."

"Hello?" she said when she'd put it on.

_"Hello Neytiri, could you just come to the medbay please?" _

It took her a moment to realise that it was Rick speaking.

"Okay. Is there a problem?"

_"No, don't worry_," she heard the smile in his voice. _"Just something we'd like you to see."_

Inside the lab it was already fairly busy. Rick, Francine and several other healers were standing around one of the amino tanks, and when Neytiri looked closer, she saw that the hunter who was floating inside was moving. Norm was standing close to the tank, pressing something against it and talking seemingly to the wounded man.

Rick saw her and a moment later came out through the airlock.

"Thank you for coming. He is starting to wake, and we thought it might comfort him to hear you. Norm tried to explain in Na'vi, but I'm not sure if seeing all of us is that helpful," he said, handing her a small device. "If you press that against the glass," he indicated the round window hatch, "then he will be able to hear you."

Rick moved the rolling bed away from the round window so she could reach it easily, and she talked to the device, feeling faintly ridiculous.

"I am Neytiri of the Omaticaya," she started, and the man jerked his hand, clearly reacting to her voice. "You were wounded in battle, and we brought you here to be healed. These sky people are helping us - they put you in this fluid because it heals your burn wounds." Indeed, his burns looked much better already. The angry purple blisters had faded away, and new skin was already starting to form.

"We want to give him some medication that will make him sleepy again," Rick said softly. "Could you explain that so he doesn't freak about it?"

"You will get medicine to dull the pain and to make you sleep," she said to the device against the glass. "You are safe; I will make sure one of us is near when you wake up."

She stood watching for a long moment as Francine did something complicated to the cluster of tubes that ran from the man's mouth to the machine panel outside.

"Check out in the back there," Rick said, rolling the bed back into place.

Neytiri looked and took a sharp breath at the sight of Tru'dee, still floating in her tank, making small twitchy movements. Max was sitting at the head-end of the tank, one hand to the glass. He was talking into the same sort of device she'd just used.

"She's awake?"

"She's not in a coma anymore," Rick said. "We are keeping her heavily sedated, and she will be in there for quite a while, and of course we won't be able to tell if she has brain damage until she wakes up... but it's a step in the right direction."

She nodded. Tru'dees burn wounds were also beginning to heal, but like the hunter in the tank in front of her, the wounds on the surface were not the only problem.

She shifted her weight, starting to get uncomfortable on the hard tiles.

"What's wrong with your feet?" Rick didn't miss much.

"The tarmac was very hot yesterday," she said, feeling a little silly for even mentioning such a minor discomfort.

"Christ, of course it was. I can't believe nobody thought of that. Why didn't you say something?"

She frowned at him. Why would she have said something? Did the humans have power over the temperature of the tarmac while the sun shone?

"We have all sorts of clothing that was made for the avatars," he clarified. "Including shoes and things. I'll ask someone to bring it out."

It wasn't long later that a widely grinning Darrell rolled two big crates out to the square where the cooking fire was. Rick joined them when Neytiri and Na'el opened the crates and examined the contents. There were the big clunky shoes she had seen Grace wear, and was convinced could not possibly be comfortable, but there were also softer, lighter versions of that, and pairs of fabric slip-on things, and various versions of soles with straps.

Na'el tried on the heavy shoes and pulled a face.

"How can sky people walk?"

"You might find these more to your liking," Rick said, indicating foot-shaped pieces of flat spongy material, with straps on top. "We call them flip-flops. This here sits between your toes."

Neytiri put two of them on the ground and stepped into them. The strap between her toes felt strange, but apart from that they were nicely open and unrestricting.

She took a few experimental steps and stopped in consternation. The flip-flops swatted against her heel with every step, making a loud flapping sound. Both Rick and Darrell burst into laughter when they saw her face.

"Do humans _walk_ on these?" she said, baffled.

"That's why they're called flip-flops," Darrell said, still chuckling.

Na'el picked up a pair of the same things and looked at them critically. Then she pulled her knife from her belt and sliced off the straps, shoved the soles into the socks she'd found, and slid her feet in. it took a moment to arrange the soles nicely under her feet, but then she walked away with confidence - and in silence.

Neytiri tried it, but disliked the feeling of tightness around her feet, and opted for a pair of soles with more elaborate straps. It did not feel as airy, but it didn't flap, at least.

It wasn't long before almost all the Na'vi present on the base had devised some form of footwear, and it made Neytiri grin to see everybody walk around with deliberate strides, not accustomed to having something on their feet.

"See, not everything we make is bad," Rick said with a grin.

"If you did not cover the ground with tarmac, you wouldn't need them," she pointed out. Then, seeing his expression fall, "but thank you. We are much more comfortable now."

* * *

_to be continued_

Dear Anon who left the really long review - you made my week. Thank you :-)


	15. Chapter 15

**A Pale Blue Light**

_Chapter 15_

_

* * *

  
_

Neytiri sent out a sizable hunting and gathering party while there was time, and spent the rest of the day in a strange state of anticipation. She tried to relax for a while, but she wasn't used to sitting around waiting, and finally started to fletch arrows just to give her hands something to occupy them. She knew she would not see Jake until later in the day, as he was helping inside with packing belongings.

"_Neytiri?_"

She jumped, dropping the arrow she'd been working on. She was still not used to the sudden voice in her ear. O'maru gave her a strange look.

"Yes?"

"_Just a heads-up_," said Darrell. "_The shuttle is going to come over the east wall in about half an hour. It's huge and noisy and the engines are very dangerous - could you make sure there are no people outside on that side of the base, and especially no banshees?_"

"I can try."

"_Oh good. We normally had the shuttle escorted by Samsons just to make sure nothing flying could get near - things can get sucked into the engine, and it's all - kinda gruesome and horrible. But we don't have any escorts now, so..._"

"I'll see to it," she reassured him.

O'maru, who was sitting opposite her, had followed this strange one sided conversation with wonder on his face.

"Who do you speak to?"

"Darrell, one of the humans," she said.

"He is here on the base?"

She nodded.

"Why does he not come to speak to you?"

She shook her head, amused at herself for not knowing how to explain. The pace at which the humans lived left no time for walking across the compound just for a brief conversation, but that was an idea that O'maru could not even comprehend. Until a few days ago, it was something she hadn't been able to understand, either.

"He asks that we make sure there is nobody on the east side of the compound, and especially no ikran. Could you find the riders and ask them to call their mounts? They are safe in this area," she indicated the green strip and the wooden structures where a few ikran were already sitting.

O'maru looked to the east and they saw a few ikran vaulting and playing there, finding perches in the huge metal structures the humans had built there. He nodded.

Not all the ikran riders were present - some had gone off to hunt, but she hoped that if most of the creatures were called, the others would follow them to safety. When O'maru left to speak to the riders, she mounted a Pa'li and went to explore the east side of the base to make sure nothing or noone was in the danger zone.

Neytiri thought she had a fairly good idea of what half an hour was in the timekeeping of the humans, but she thought she must have misjudged, because she was still riding along the base of the metal towers when she heard a low roar in the distance. It was hauntingly familiar - she sound of a shuttle. The same airship that had almost destroyed the Tree of Souls and her mother with it.

She cantered the pa'li until she was well out of range of what had to be the landing site, and then dismounted, sending the animal back to the green area to shelter from the noise. She stayed behind, standing not far from the main door of the building, watching the airship approach.

It looked enormous and solid, like something that should not be able to stay in the air. Toruk was the largest thing she had known that could fly, but Toruk was all elegance and streamline, a creature of cruel beauty that was nowhere more at place than in the air. The shuttle looked like a big square stone.

"_Neytiri_?"

Her head whipped around on instinct, and for once not in vain; the main door had opened not far behind her, and Max and Selfridge had come outside. The noise of the approaching shuttle was deafening enough that she had not heard them.

"Max?" she had to remind herself that it was not necessary to raise her voice to talk on the radio, despite the noise.

"_Fancy meeting the flight crew?_"

She shrugged, not sure at first why he wanted her there. Selfridge was also there, looking stiff in another set of his strange layered clothing and neck loop. Then it occurred to her - the people who flew the shuttle had been on the space vessel all the time. They had only heard about the events via radio. Selfridge would have to convince them that things were running as he wanted them, and both Max and herself would serve as illustration of the new strategy that would be left running the base.

The next moment the shuttle passed the compound wall, and she couldn't form a thought for the noise as it swung around and slowly settled on the ground.

"_It'll take a few minutes for the after-flight protocol_," she heard Selfridge say. "_Then they're coming down to talk._"

The noise began to lessen, until she could hear his voice through the air rather than through the radio. He was explaining something about the shuttle that she didn't understand and wasn't much interested in.

What seemed like an eternity, the noise level came down further and the ramp opened. Neytiri re-settled her father's bow around her shoulder and waited, wondering what exactly this meeting was going to entail.

Finally a small group of humans could be seen inside the shuttle, and a man and a woman detached from them and came down the ramp. Both were dressed in clothes similar to what she'd seen Tru'dee wear. Their step faltered a little when they saw her, but they recovered quickly.

"Welcome," Selfridge said, taking a few steps forward to shake their hands. "This is Max Patel," he indicated the scientist, "and this is Neytiri of the Omaticaya."

She was impressed - there had only been the slightest hesitation before he'd come out with those Na'vi names. She wondered if learning her name had been his idea, or if one of the others had hammered the idea into him that if he wanted to appear as if he'd treated with the Na'vi, he needed to address them as people.

The woman shook Max's hand first, but the man took a step toward her, something of excitement in his deep brown eyes, and then laid a hand over his heart.

"_Oel ngati kameie_," he said in word-perfect Na'vi. "_It is an honour to meet you._"

He was older than most of the people on the base - of age with Darrell, she estimated, but it was hard to be sure. His skin had a golden brown tone to it, and his skin was crinkled with lines. His hair was very short, almost like the fuzz on Penghrrap leaves.

"_I see you, pilot; it is an honour to meet you also_," she replied, smiling. There was an awkward little pause as she waited to see in which language he wanted to continue the conversation.

"That's all I can say," he admitted regretfully. "Not much use to learning the language when I spend all my time in space. But it was worth it just to be able to use it once."

"Your pronunciation is very good," she said, wondering if he was going to remember to introduce himself.

"I am Paolo Juarez," he said, and she hid her grin, knowing many humans found her teeth unnerving. "Second on the Venture Star. That is Trish O'Malley, my Captain," he indicated the woman.

The captain heard her name and turned to acknowledge Neytiri with a hand over her heart, which she returned, and was then drawn back into conversation by Selfridge.

A winged shadow passed over the tarmac, and she looked up, for a moment afraid Toruk had returned - but it was only one of the ikran, released by its rider now that the spaceship was safely on the ground. Several more were approaching, making exploration dives and shrieking at the strange new thing in their recently claimed territory.

Paolo Juarez watched in awe.

"Have you not been on Pandora before?"

"We are based on the Venture Star," he explained. "I've been on the base a few times over the past year, but I've never seen the planet as I hoped to when I accepted this mission."

Few humans had seen the planet - at least, the planet that the Na'vi saw. Jake was the only one who had learned to truly _see_ her world. While Grace had learned a great deal about Pandora, her drive to take things apart to find out how they worked had stopped her from truly seeing.

"Are you not pleased to return to Earth, then?"

"Now there is peace, I regret to leave so soon," he admitted. "I would have liked to see more."

He was still watching the ikran, and the wonder in his eyes made her smile a little.

"Let's get inside so we can talk properly," Selfridge said. "I've been updating the personnel lists, so we'll need to talk through the admin side."

Paolo looked disappointed - Neytiri noticed that the captain did not look too enthusiastic either, but she followed Selfridge to the door, clearly committed to getting the formal part out of the way.

"There'll be time to come back out later, no?" the pilot asked. "This is the first time in about four months that I'm outside!"

"You'll have time," Max said. "Or you could take the outside route to the meeting room."

The two pilots exchanged a look, and the captain gave a slight nod.

"I'd like that," the man said.

"Neytiri, would you mind accompanying Mr Juarez to the medbay? The meeting room is on that side, I will have someone wait there."

She nodded and gestured for the man to walk with her as the others went inside.

They walked fairly close to the buildings, because while she didn't think Toruk would return, she did not want to take the risk. It was a novelty to find another human besides Jake who actively enjoyed being outside on her world - but then again, if he had been inside human structures for the past four months, it was not surprising that he liked to be out in the sun.

"I am so glad that you have made peace with us humans," he said after a few minutes. "This base didn't used to be a fortress. Hopefully there will be more cooperation from now on."

She nodded noncommittally, unsure what he had been told about the events of the past few weeks, not wanting to reveal something he wasn't meant to know.

She lead the way into the green space, and he stopped to stare at the pa'li that was seeking nectar nearby.

"Oh..." he sighed. "A direhorse. The photos do not do them justice."

"We call them pa'li." Neytiri made a soft kirr sound to draw its attention, and the creature calmly walked up to her, stretching out its neck to sniff her hands and then her hair. After a moment she guided the questing nose toward the man next to her. He'd taken a step back when the pa'li approached, but now he stood still, an awestruck expression on his face as it sniffed at his mask, hair and his hands.

His mask made a sort of hiss when he started breathing again, and the pa'li startled a little, backing off and then losing interest.

Neytiri slowly led the man toward the medbay, waiting patiently as he stopped to examine plants, admired the ikran that were basking on the wooden structures, and generally enjoyed being outside.

When she finally brought him inside, he bowed.

"My thanks for the company; it was a great honour."

As she walked back out, she was surprised to realise that she liked him. She liked Max and Darrell and some of the others, but the simple fact that they were helping the Na'vi had endeared them to her. A human who hadn't been on one side or another in the battle - she had not expected to take to him so much.

* * *

Around mid-afternoon the medical staff started doing the final checkups on the people that were leaving - first the base staff, who could stay inside until it was time to enter the shuttle. All the healers would then be available to do the checks on the men that were being held in the workshop, so that everything could happen at good speed.

She was pleasantly surprised when O'hute arrived together with the hunters that returned for their guard duties in the afternoon. Their greeting was much less formal this time.

"Welcome! I had not expected to see you back here," she said with something of surprise as the leader of the sea clan dismounted her ikran.

"I was told that O'ziteh is waking up," she answered with a smile. "And I wished to witness the departure of the sky people for myself."

"Your man is recovering," she nodded. "I am not sure if he is well enough to travel yet, but all the wounded are improving."

"That is good to hear."

"How are things in the forest?"

"Mo'at is a wonder of organisation," O'hute smiled. "Things are starting to come under control as well as you have it here. And we still have the occasional hunter return - just this morning one of your men finally made his way back."

"That is good to hear. We will need to start thinking about a new home, soon,' she said with a sigh. She hadn't thought about that much, so far - it promised to be quite the mission, especially without an ikran. "The work is not done, but it's good to hear that they are doing well, under the circumstances."

"I hope our presence does not put too heavy a burden on your clan and your land," O'hute said. "I have sent my people further afield to forage, so that we do not exhaust your food supply nearby the Tree of Souls."

"Thank you. You and your people are welcome to stay as long as you wish, but that is indeed a consideration. I fear that the area around the Tree of Souls will be affected for generations to come."

"I saw the sites where those airships crashed," the other woman nodded. "Thank Eywa the fire did not spread far, at least."

* * *

Halfway the afternoon, Darrell and a few helpers rolled out a large cart stacked with crates. A few of the Na'vi helped putting them inside the shuttle, stacking them where the shuttle crew indicated they should go.

The hunting party returned with another Yerik, and several people set to work to set the roasting process going. She was pleased that this time they would not have to wait until late to eat, and there would be plenty. It would most likely be the last night most of them would be on the base, and she did not like to reward their help with hunger.

Jake finally came outside around the time the crates were loaded up. She wasn't surprised to see him in his Na'vi body this time - she'd guessed he would want to be on his feet during the shipping out.

"You've been busy inside."

He nodded. "I arranged to put the information thing we talked about in place."

He noticed her feet and grinned. "Coming round to the human ideas on footwear?"

"The tarmac got very hot yesterday, and we stood around for a long time. It's not nearly so bad today. Did you see that O'hute is here?"

"She's inside talking with O'ziteh," he nodded.

.

For all the problems of the day before, the actual shipping out was relatively painless. When all the base crew had been 'processed' - Neytiri still thought that was a strange word to apply to people - they were led outside in a long queue. On the ramp of the shuttle four members of crew met them with some type of machine where they entered who each person was, and they were then seated.

It wasn't a slow process, but there were many people, and as the queue slowly moved forward toward the shuttle, the healers started calling groups of four men out of the workshop, doing their last checkup, and sending them to join the queue.

Jake and Neytiri stood by, as did most of the hunters. With the base crew they kept their distance, more a presence than a guard. Once the combat crew started to join the group, Neytiri signalled for the guards to stick a little closer. The Na'vi looked intimidating, most of them still in their combat regalia, few of them with friendly expressions.

The humans looked up warily, but they seemed resigned to what was happening.

Neytiri noticed that three of the men did not pass the final health check - the two who had been close with Hansdovich, and someone whose wounds had not healed to Francine's satisfaction. They were sent inside.

When the last of the departing men had passed the health check Neytiri and Jake followed the last of the queue as it slowly disappeared into the shuttle. Selfridge, who had chosen to walk with the base staff, now stood on the shuttle ramp, chatting with the people that came inside. From what she could hear they were short, reassuring conversations about how they would be home soon. She was vaguely impressed that he was willing to be among the people after the incident of the day before.

She didn't like him, but she couldn't quite manage hate for him either - he was simply one of so many that could not see, and felt no desire to. The only difference was that he had been in command. By all accounts the one who had acted in malice toward her people had been Quaritch, and she had personally delivered the ending he deserved for his deeds.

When everybody was seated, the crew lingered on the ramp for a moment to say their goodbyes to those who would stay behind.

"It was an honour to meet you," the captain said to her, then to Jake. She returned the slight bow. The other woman shook Max's hand.

"We will be in regular radio contact," he said. "Take care."

"I'm sorry to leave so soon," Paolo Juarez said. "Thank you for letting me meet the pa'li. It was an honour."

She smiled at his wistfulness.

"It was my pleasure to show you what little we had time for."

"You could stay the week," Max suggested with a grin. She wasn't sure if he was serious. Clearly, neither was the pilot. "We think it'll be a week to ten days before the rest will be healed enough to go into cryo, and the shuttle will have to come back down to pick them up. If you want to see more of Pandora there isn't going to be another chance."

Everybody looked to the captain, who looked thoughtful.

"Look, don't imagine some sort of wild wilderness expedition - we don't really go off the base much," Max added. "But there's all sorts to meet, and we can definitely arrange you a Samson tour at some point."

"You _were_ due your R and R soon," the captain finally said. "And Crutzec has been begging me for some more responsibility."

She seemed to think it over some more.

"Very well then," she said finally. "We'll manage without you. But if you let yourself get eaten by one of those banshees you will be in _major _trouble."

Neytiri puzzled over that, but it seemed to be some sort of joke between them, because Paolo just grinned.

A few moments later the pilot had collected a bag from inside and joined the small group on the tarmac. Curt greetings were exchanged with Selfridge, and then they stepped back so that the ramp could close.

Neytiri signalled for the Na'vi that were waiting around that their duties had ended, and to stay well clear of the airship. The day was coming to an end - the sun had already disappeared behind the treeline.

She walked next to Max as their small group went toward the building entrance.

"We are having a small celebration feast tonight," she said. "Will you come out to join us?"

He seemed surprised - and pleased.

"I'd like that - can I bring the others?"

"Of course."

"We might have to eat in advance; we eating with masks on is a right royal pain. But a celebration seems in order, all the same. We will be there."

"The night sky will be particularly beautiful tonight," she said, looking at the clouds that were dissolving rapidly. "Is it possible to turn off the outside lights? We would like to be able to see."

"Should be able to, yeah," he said. Behind them the thunderous noise of the shuttle engines started.

* * *

That evening, long after the shuttle had flown off, Neytiri looked around in satisfaction. The fire had burned down to glowing embers, the food long gone.

Perhaps fifteen humans had come outside to join the Na'vi gathering by the fire. Some, like Max, were quite comfortable with the Na'vi now. With the help of Norm's translating he was speaking to O'hute, a relaxed smile on their faces. Some of the humans stuck to their own little group, and she thought that while they might not be at ease talking to her people yet, they did seem fairly relaxed to be outside after dark. Her own people mirrored the humans - Tsuyo and Na'el were engaged in a spirited conversation with Francine, Hansdovitch, Paolo and Elly the healer, but some sat a little further to the side, preferring to stick to their own kind.

Still, it was a start.

Neytiri sat back with a sigh, finally able to relax now most of the humans had left. There was much work still to be done, chief among it the selection of a new home for her people, but it felt like the battle was truly over now. From here on there was only reconstruction.

Suddenly the bright floodlights of the base went out, and there was some murmuring among the humans. It seemed to suddenly be pitch black - it took her eyes a few moments to get accustomed to the new light level. A few lights went back on at the building doors, so that navigating around the base was still possible.

With the base finally clear of the blinding lights, the sky stretched out above the company. There were some murmured exclaims from the humans.

Nawm'sempul, a familiar presence in the sky during the day, _was_ the sky at night. The vast expanse of the blue planet filled the view almost from horizon to horizon. Two moons were visible, dwarfed by the Great Father, their shadows black spots in the blue swirls on the planet surface.

From the whispered sentiments among the humans she wondered if none of them had seen it before. It was a familiar and comforting presence to the Na'vi, though living in the forest, it wasn't that often that they could see the sky quite this well.

Nehnet started singing softly from her place by the fire, one of the old songs about Eywa and Nawm'sempul. Before long several others had joined in. The open space of the base gave their voices a strange quality, a fey sort of resonance. Neytiri mouthed along, feeling oddly full of emotion, as if she wanted to laugh or weep, or both.

Her world had changed so much in such a short time. Dear losses - such great losses, of so many dear people - and the fall of Hometree... but also gains - of friendships, of understanding, and of hope.

"You seem sad," Jake said softly, kneeling next to her.

"I - I don't know what I am," she said. Then flashed a grin, hearing herself echo his words of a few days before.

He caught her eyes a moment, and she knew they had to be shimmering with tears. Her breath stilled at the look on his face, the intensity and the love. He wordlessly sat down next to her, hip against hip, enveloping her in the circle of his arms. She rested her head against his shoulder and let out a long breath, feeling his calm presence wash over her.

Under the pale blue light of Nawn'sempul, it felt like coming home.

_The End_

* * *

Whooo! I'm exceptionally pleased with this. Not specifically with the story, because I'm sure I'll find plenty of niggles about it in the next few weeks, but mostly just because it's the first full length story I've written in years, and I managed it in 3 months!

There is an epilogue still to come (sometime the weekend I think). I don't think there'll be a sequel (so please don't ask for one) - I originally intended for this to be shorter, but I included lots of the material I thought would need a sequel into this story, so I'm kind of 'done' here. Plothole patched *grin*. I might do some drabbles and shorties in this universe though, if the mood strikes.

Oh yes, someone brought to my attention that the summary isn't very inspiring. Since the story is now finished, I figured I could just ask you, oh dear enthusiastic and motivating readers - what should the summary be? Give me your version (max 250 characters incl spaces) and I'll pick the one I like best and use that. And credit you, of course :-)

Cheers,

Arwen Lune


	16. Epilogue

**A Pale Blue Light**

_Epilogue_

* * *

Neytiri felt Hu'we, her new ikran, hesitate as they approached the base. They had been there a few times since she had bonded with him, but Hu'we was still a little skittish of the wide open expanse of the base.

She guided the ikran to follow Jake, who was flying on their left. As she looked at him he grinned wide and gestured to the base. A door had opened there and two small figures came out onto the tarmac, awaiting them with hands shading their eyes.

The ikran raised the dust with their backwinged landing, and Hu'we screeched in protest at having to land on the hot smooth surface. As soon as she had dismounted, she released him to go settle in one of the wooden structures.

"Welcome," Francine greeted them warmly. She had adopted the Na'vi way of greeting, with a hand over the heart, simply because the height difference made it the most practical. Neytiri returned the greeting in the same style. Jake however did not care, and leant down to shake her hand.

"It's good to see you both," said Norm. "Getting used to your body?"

It had been fifty-three days since the last humans left in the shuttle. Fifteen days since the ceremony. Fourteen nights of having Jake next to her, breathing softly, sometimes turning over to drape an arm over her.

Ten days since he had felt well enough to talk to anyone.

The ceremony had been a success, but it had been more taxing than either of them had anticipated, and in more ways than one. Dealing with his human body afterward had been very emotional. Norm and Max had come to the ceremony to support Jake, and she had been glad of it; they had helped to bury his human body, giving the ceremony a human air that she knew Jake had appreciated.

"Ah, getting there," Jake said. "How are you? Avatar body on its feet yet?"

"Yeah! Since last week. Has lost a ton of muscle mass though, I'm spending a lot of time on the obstacle course."

"When you're well enough, will you come visit our new Hometree?" she asked. He had asked if that would be allowed at some point.

After having explored seven of the enormous trees in the weeks after the humans had left, the Omaticaya had finally settled on one to the North of the base, at an hour's flying away.

His eyes lit up. "That'd be great! I promise not to stick needles into it," he grinned. Then he indicated the necklace she wore. "I believe we may congratulate you?"

"Ah yes!" Jake grinned. He made a motion as if he was presenting her. "Olo'eyktan Neytiri. The ceremony was last week."

Neytiri smiled at his pleasure in saying that. He had made it clear he had no wish to be Olo'eyktan, and had managed to withdraw himself from consideration for the role of leader simply by staying in the background and leaving it to her to do most of decision making for the Na'vi. She hadn't even really noticed until she'd found herself implicitly introduced as the leader of the Na'vi to the crew of the shuttle.

The situation had caused a few discussions within the clan, of course, because who would follow Mo'at as Tsahik? But Mo'at had made it clear there were several in the clan she would be happy to take on as apprentice, and since Neytiri had effectively led the people from the moment the battle was over, nobody had argued her suitability.

"Congratulations; I am sure the clan could do no better," Francine said. Neytiri puzzled over that a moment; it could either be a compliment to her, or an insult to the clan. From context however it was clear that it was well meant, so she smiled and thanked the other woman.

"Let's go to the garden," Norm said, leading the way. "We put down some seats, and there's lots of fruit at the moment if you're hungry."

The four of them were walking toward the green area of the base when someone yelled

"HEY MISTER SMURF!!"

Everybody looked around to see Trudy stride toward them, clad in a greasy coverall. Her hair had begun to grow out into an interesting spiky style. She was wiping her hands on a rag as she came, then passed it to Max, who was accompanying her, also in coveralls.

"Trudy!" Jake laughed. He sank to one knee so they could embrace.

The last time they had been on the base, when Neytiri had come to collect Jake to bring him to the Tree of Souls for the ceremony, the pilot had still been recovering, only just re learning to walk.

"Sorry I couldn't be at your funeral," she said to Jake, tone half serious.

"It's okay. You were busy remembering how your legs worked," Jake deadpanned. They grinned at each other.

"It is very good to see you are well," Neytiri said. And to Max, "And you also. I did not know you also healed machines."

"I, ah - Trudy was showing me which replacement parts she needs," he said, and she caught his glance toward Jake and Trudy's fond embrace.

"Besides, you don't become a scientist if you're not interested in how stuff works - Samsons are pretty interesting."

"Makes a change from the white coat, doesn't it?" Trudy grinned as she let go of Jake.

Someone had put a circle of chairs and a large table in what was now called 'the garden', and from the few empty cups on the table Neytiri concluded it was in regular use. She and Jake settled down on the ground while the humans chose chairs, bringing everybody to a comfortable height for talking.

"How've you been?" Trudy asked eagerly.

"Busy!" Jake laughed. "Still settling into the new hometree, mostly. I've spent the last few days digging the roasting pit. How have things been here?"

"We've been going through the buildings, sealing off the spaces we won't be using anymore," Max said. "Found lots of interesting stuff stashed away that we can use, too."

"Yeah, like fabric supplies so we can make our own clothes and shit," Trudy said.

"Grace mentioned that there used to be a sewing workshop here," Norm said. "But apparently it was easier to just ship a ton of clothes in every size in from earth."

"Yeah, we found those too," Trudy grinned. "If you need six hundred pairs of combat trousers..."

"Well actually, a pair of cargo shorts..." Everybody started at him. "What? Pockets are handy. I miss pockets."

"What's the clan going to say about that?"

Neytiri smiled. After his deeds during the battle, most of the Na'vi were quite willing to accept Jake, strange quirks and all. Some were more open than others, but few expected him to abandon his human roots completely. He had proven his loyalty and his worth.

"I don't know, maybe they'll say 'Hey, pockets, what a good idea'?" Jake said with a grin.

"Well, we should have things like that around the place, I can go dig for you if you like," Norm said.

"Cool."

"Actually, that reminds me, said Francine. "We've got some people here who like to do ancient crafts - like spinning thread and knitting clothes from it. We've been gathering..." she looked around for a moment and then jumped up to pick something off the grass nearby. "This stuff. Do you know where we could find more?"

She held out the little bit of pale green fluff, and Neytiri accepted it, rubbing it between her fingers and then smelling.

"These are spores from the Eyaya plant."

"Are those rare?"

"They are not - in fact, they're very common, only right now they look different from the one here. It must be ready early because it's out in the sun."

"So we'll be able to find more of the material?"

She chuckled.

"In about ten days you will find it everywhere – in your food, in the air – literally everywhere."

"Oh _that's_ going to be fun for the choppers," Trudy said. "Be a bitch to keep the filters clear. Might have to just ground 'em for the duration."

Max nodded thoughtfully.

"That kind of pushes up the idea of the mining tests, but... how long does the fluff season last?"

"Perhaps a week," Neytiri said. "Though it will be in the air a few days more."

"Ah well, we'll just gather as much of the stuff as we can, and you'll be able to knit until your hands fall off," he grinned at Francine.

"What is knitting?"

"It's a way to make thread into fabric," said Francine. She got up. "I'll grab an example from inside to show you."

"Actually, wait a sec, Fran - I'm just going in to grab my camera," Trudy said. "I gotta get a photo of Mr Smurf sitting here like he's come to our garden party."

"Hey!"

She snickered, cuffed Jake on the arm in passing, and jogged off toward the building. Neytiri noticed Max's lingering glance.

"Hah, leaking a few photos like that to the Earth media could really set Selfridge up for a nice return home," Jake mused. "Pretty much put him in an established situation..."

"It's an idea," Max said. "We've been thinking about a documentary as well. You've seen the stuff they have made in the past - terrified camera crew surrounded by SecOps people don't really get very interesting shots."

"Yeah, I remember. It was impressive enough when I'd never seen it here, but now..."

"I figure if we made a decent docu about the new situation, showing stuff like this moment here... maybe even film it as a combined Na'vi-Human crew..."

"We have the contacts to distribute it, back on earth," Norm said. "It could win awards, no question."

"What could?" Trudy returned, handing Francine a fabric bag and then walking around the company to take photos.

"A documentary about the new situation, filmed together with the Na'vi," Max answered, smiling.

"That'd be cool. Hey Jake, can we bolt a camera to your shoulder when you go flying sometime? That'd be awesome footage," Trudy said, still making photos.

"Sure, sounds like fun. I figure we've got one shot at prepping the situation on Earth for when Selfridge gets there. If he's welcomed off the spaceship like a hero, he'll never speak a word about what went down here."

"..and the RDA will make sure none of the crew do, either," Trudy added under her breath.

"There's that."

While Trudy, Norm and Jake talked about what they would want to film, Francine showed her the 'knitting'. It looked quite complicated, but she had to admit the result felt pleasant to the skin.

"Do your people not wear fabrics at all?"

"Not as clothing - we do make nets out of cord. Material such as this," she fingered the knitting, "would only soak in the rain and take a long time to dry. It is not practical to us."

"Ah, I didn't think of that..."

"Why do you do it? Tru'dee said that there are fabric supplies on the base."

"I enjoy it," Francine shrugged. "Knitting is relaxing. And it's satisfying to make something useful out of things I have found in nature."

She must have seen the look on Neytiri's face, because she blushed a little.

"That's a really weird thing to say, isn't it? To you? You and your people make everything out of things you find in nature."

Neytiri nodded.

"We are so used that things are made in factories and that food comes from shops or from the mess hall, that just doing something simple like this feels quite special."

Neytiri stroked the healer's handiwork. It was very soft to her fingers. She liked that the other woman seemed to find joy in making something of things produced by the forest - for so long the humans had kept themselves completely separate from Pandora, bringing everything that they needed from space.

"There is a fruit that is covered in a layer of tough fibre - we use it to make mats. I will save some for you to see."

"Oh, I'd like that!"

"....for now, let's concentrate on the ways the base here is changing, okay?" she heard Jake say, and turned her attention back to the other conversation. "I think it may take a while before most of the people are comfortable with a samson flying around hometree."

Neytiri nodded. The sound still made her restless, too.

"Perhaps it would be good if the first time you visit us, you land some distance away," she said.

"Can do. Shall I assist from our side?" Jake suggested. She smiled, knowing he would be glad to have a specific role to play within the clan. His new position as full member of the clan in peacetime would take some adjusting.

"Cool!" Trudy said. "I'm gonna start playing around with the equipment this week, maybe make some flying shots while I still can, you know, before the fluffpocalypse starts."

"The radiation storms will begin in a week or two," Max said. ",when we pass through the belts of Polyphemus," he gestured up at Nawn'sempul. "We will have to stay inside of course, but we should set up camera equipment - the sky always looks amazing."

"Oh, I heard about that," Norm said. It's supposed to be--"

"_Tsap'alute_," Neytiri interrupted him, having repeated the word a few times in her head. _Apologies_."Fluff WHAT?"

.

* * *

.

_[a year later...]_

.  


"Neytiri! Neytiri!"

She heard the excited shouts at the same time as the deep roar of the airship came into range.

"Neytiri! Tru'dee is coming!" the little boy came pelting up to her, pointing at the small dot in the sky. She thanked him with a smile, amused that a sound that had inspired nothing but dread and anger a year ago, should be such a welcome sound now.

As the humans on the base had settled into the new arrangement, the bond between the two peoples had developed. Cautiously at first, but after Darrell had convinced some of the teenagers of the clan to teach him how to play on the leaves of the Pamtseowll plant, the amount of contact had grown steadily. She'd had her misgivings at first, especially when some of the young Na'vi had started to wear trousers like Jake, but the novelty of clothing had worn off soon, and it had comforted her to see the humans also adopt things from her people.

Some of the kids had assisted Trudy in her filming projects, and been repaid with a flying tour in the airship. Since the Na'vi did not generally get to see Pandora from the air until they became taronyu and had their own ikran, this had been special indeed. Ever since then, Trudy and her airship, which she had painted blue, had become a welcome sight especially among the younger clan members.

"We will continue the lesson tomorrow," she told the two teenagers that she had been teaching how to select the right wood for a bow.

Striding out into the clearing underneath hometree, she watched the airship approach.

"I wonder if the communication system with earth is finally back up?" Jake came out from inside their home to stand with her. "I know they've been pretty anxious to get it going again after the storms."

"Mm. At least this year they have someone who can repair it..."

He laid his hand on her back, between her shoulder blades, and she leant into him a little, loving that solid, familiar touch.

"Yeah, last year was... not ideal."

After the space vessel with the humans had left, leaving behind a skeleton crew of scientists and base staff, it had been a struggle to do all the technical things on the base that were necessary for the humans to work. Keeping the communication system working was one of them.

The first spaceship that had arrived after the big change had brought supplies and the people needed to keep the base functioning.

The airship set down a few hundred metres from the base of hometree, and they watched together as Trudy, Max and Norm approached, Norm in his avatar body. It made Neytiri smile to see him in shorts and bare feet at last. A Na'vi body wearing those odd long trousers and heavy boots had been very strange.

Neytiri smiled inwardly as the three humans greeted the clan members they encountered on their way up. In the process of filming the humans had worked closely with the clan, and they'd each made an effort to learn names. That had lead the way to being welcome in the Omaticaya's new home. Many of the clan were still somewhat wary of the humans, but these particular people had become personal friends of the clan, and that was different.

"Hey guys! Finally safe to come outside again?" Jake grinned. The humans had had to stay inside during the radiation storms.

"Thank God for that!" Trudy laughed. "I was getting cabin fever."

They greeted one another warmly, and Neytiri noticed that Trudy seemed very excited about something.

"We got the comms system back up," Max said. "And there was some pretty cool news..."

"We won! Our film won!" Trudy grinned wide. "There's a really big award ceremony for films and our film won best documentary!"

"That's great! You worked very hard on it," Neytiri smiled at the other woman's enthusiasm.

"What's even better is the attention we've created for Pandora as an ecosystem," Norm said. "There is serious talk of declaring the entire planet a protected area, like a reserve."

Jake's eyes went wide.

"Really? That's amazing!"

"Reserve?" Neytiri asked.

"It would mean that control of what is allowed here would be in government hands, and not up to a company," Max said. "That puts the RDA effectively out of the game. They would never be able to come back here to take back control."

"Or at least not for a really long time," Trudy said.

"We gotta celebrate this," Jake grinned. "Come on - I've got new brewing experiments ready for tasting."

"We will try your experiments. For science!"

"Yeah, scientific interest. Exactly. There is much to learn."

"You do realise I gotta fly us back, right?"

"What? We've got beds for you here..."

Neytiri followed her husband and their friends into the base of hometree, and smiled to herself.

* * *

_The End_

Thanks for joining me on this ride!


End file.
